This is a multifandom space dedicated to character-driven fanfiction, where stories lean toward the intimate, the unsettling, and the emotionally complex.
You may find:
— explorations of love in its most distorted and fragile forms
— morally ambiguous dynamics
— slow-burn tension, obsession, and quiet devastation
☆ Current Series
Quiet Games (Baelor x reader x Aerion)
Polaris (Benjamin Poindexter x reader)
Northbound (Sequel to Polaris)
☆ Notes
— Content will often include dark themes (please read warnings on each work)
— Updates may be irregular, but each piece is written with intention
— Discussions, interpretations, and reblogs are always welcome
The sharp knock against the driver's side window tears you out of sleep.
You jolt so hard your shoulder slams against the door.
For a moment you don't know where you are.
Bright morning light.
Far brighter than it should be.
For a moment it leaves you squinting in confusion.
The hum of distant traffic filters through the windows.
Your neck aches, a sharp crick running from the base of your skull down between your shoulders.
Your back isn't much better. Every muscle protests as you shift, stiff from being curled awkwardly in the driver's seat.
Something hard presses against your side, and for a few disoriented seconds you can't figure out why everything feels so uncomfortable.
Then your brain finally catches up.
The truck.
Right.
The familiar scent of worn upholstery and stale coffee settles around you as memory slowly returns.
Sometime during your search you must have pulled over.
Just for a minute.
Just long enough to rest your eyes.
Apparently long enough to fall asleep.
You groan softly and drag a hand down your face, trying to shake off the lingering haze of exhaustion.
A glance through the windshield reveals pale morning light creeping across the street, brighter than it has any right to be.
Great.
Probably a cop.
You can already hear yourself trying to explain why you've been parked on the side of the road for God knows how long, half asleep in your truck like someone who absolutely has their life together.
Your eyes squint, struggling against the morning light as you roll down the window.
The figure outside is little more than a blur at first.
Then suddenly a hand reaches through the open window.
Click.
The lock pops open.
"What the—"
Before you can finish, the stranger is already moving.
Footsteps round the front of the truck.
Then the passenger door opens.
A body slides into the seat beside you.
"Knew you'd come."
The voice is rough.
Gravelly.
Familiar.
Your entire body freezes.
"Dex?"
The name escapes you before you can stop it.
There he is.
Sunk into the passenger seat like every bone in his body hurts.
His head tipped back against the worn fabric.
A grin stretched across his face.
A ridiculous grin.
The kind of grin somebody shouldn't be capable of wearing while looking half dead.
Your stomach drops.
God.
He looks awful.
Worse than awful.
Dried blood stains the corner of his mouth, dark against skin gone pale beneath the grime.
More has dried in uneven trails from a split somewhere near his brow, crusted along the edge of a bruise already turning angry shades of purple and blue.
His face is swollen in places, one cheek marked with the fading imprint of a hard hit.
Fresh cuts and scrapes catch the morning light, and there are shadows beneath his eyes so deep they look carved there.
Exhaustion hangs off him like a second skin.
Like he's been running on nothing but adrenaline and sheer refusal to quit.
He looks like someone stitched together from scraps and stubbornness alone.
"Dex..."
The word leaves you in a breath.
And then nothing.
Your mouth opens.
Closes.
Every thought in your head tangles together at once.
The television.
The gunshot.
The blood.
The hours spent searching.
The certainty that he was dead.
The shock of seeing him sitting here now.
The shock of seeing what state he's in.
You don't know what to say.
Don't know where to start.
All that fear and relief crashes together until there's only one thing left.
"Dex, are you okay?"
You're already moving before he can answer.
One hand comes up to cradle his jaw, turning his face gently toward the light.
Your thumb brushes across a bruise blooming along his cheekbone, then traces carefully beneath his eye as if checking whether he's really there.
The other hand slips into his hair, pushing aside blood-stiffened strands from his forehead.
While Dex's grin only widens.
The idiot actually looks pleased.
Like this is the best thing that's happened to him all week.
"I'm good," he mutters.
The lie is so obvious it almost makes you angry.
Then he coughs.
A rough wet sound.
Your heart immediately sinks.
"Dex."
"I'm fine."
"You got shot."
"I'm alive."
"Dex."
He sighs dramatically.
Like you're the difficult one.
"Just take me back to your place."
Your eyes narrow immediately.
Absolutely not.
Without warning you grab the hem of his shirt.
"Doll."
You ignore him.
"Doll."
You lift it anyway.
His complaint dies instantly.
Beneath the black fabric sits a crude bandage wrapped around his abdomen.
The edges are stained pink with old blood.
Whoever patched him up clearly wasn't trying to win awards.
You stare.
Confused.
"Did somebody help you?"
Dex glances down.
"Yeah."
A pause.
Then a crooked smile.
"She did a terrible job."
Your fingers carefully touch the edge of the dressing.
"Probably because I killed her friend." Dex shrugs.
You blink.
Once.
Twice.
Then decide you don't have the energy to unpack whatever nightmare that sentence means.
The vigilante community is apparently insane.
You pull his shirt back down.
"I'll redo it when we get home."
The words leave your mouth automatically.
Simple.
Natural.
You don't even think about them.
Home.
Not your apartment.
Not your place.
Home.
As though the decision had already been made somewhere deep inside you.
As though there was never another option.
Dex goes completely still.
The grin slowly disappears.
Not because he's upset.
Because something softer takes its place.
Something almost vulnerable.
For a moment he just looks at you.
Really looks at you.
Then he leans back against the seat.
Exhaustion finally winning whatever battle stubbornness had been fighting.
And very quietly—
Almost too quietly to hear—
He says,
"Yeah."
A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
"Home sounds good."
You don't hear what Dex says.
Not at first.
You're too busy fighting with your truck.
The engine coughs weakly as you turn the key.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
The old thing groans in protest before falling silent again.
"Oh, come on..."
You let your forehead fall briefly against the steering wheel.
"Why now?"
Of all mornings for your truck to decide it has opinions.
Beside you, Dex seems perfectly content.
His eyes have drifted shut.
His head rests against the passenger window.
For a moment, you think he's fallen asleep.
You almost feel guilty for the noise.
Then—
"I thought I'd die last night."
Your hand freezes on the key.
The truck falls silent.
For a second neither of you move.
You stare through the windshield.
At the empty street.
At nothing.
Then slowly turn the key again.
The engine protests.
You don't answer.
You don't want this conversation.
Not now.
Not after the last twenty-four hours.
Not after having him half dead in your passenger seat.
You just want to get him home.
Patch him up.
Make sure he's breathing.
Everything else can wait.
But Dex keeps talking.
"I really thought that was it."
His voice is quieter than usual.
Not weaker.
Just... stripped down somehow. Like he's too tired to pretend.
"When I got to the church..."
A small breath escapes him.
"I thought my time was up."
You stare ahead.
The key turns again.
The engine coughs.
Fails.
Silence.
"I thought I'd done what I needed to do."
His gaze remains fixed somewhere outside the window.
Not looking at you.
Not really looking at anything.
"I thought I took care of what had to be taken care of."
A faint smile touches his mouth.
One without humor.
"And I was okay with it."
That finally makes you stop.
Your hand slips away from the ignition.
Slowly.
Quietly.
Because somehow that feels worse than everything else he's said.
You turn toward him.
Dex is still leaning against the seat.
Eyes half-lidded.
Exhaustion written into every line of his face.
"I was at peace with it."
He lets out a small laugh.
The sound catches somewhere in his throat.
"I didn't think I'd be."
Another pause.
"But I was."
The morning light spills through the windshield.
Pale gold against dried blood.
Against bruises.
Against a face that suddenly looks older than you've ever seen it.
Then Dex finally looks at you.
Really looks at you.
"I'm here now."
His voice lowers.
"And that has to mean something."
Something vulnerable flickers behind his eyes.
Confusion.
Hope.
Fear.
You aren't sure.
Maybe all three.
"Because why else would I still be here?"
His fingers tighten slightly against his thigh.
"As messed up as I am."
A humorless smile.
"As broken as this thing is."
He taps his chest lightly.
"This body."
"This head."
"Why am I still here if there's not a reason for it?"
Your throat tightens.
Because for all the terrible things Dex has done...
For all the things you hate about him...
You know this isn't manipulation.
He's asking you a real question.
One he genuinely doesn't know the answer to.
And somehow that's worse.
The certainty is gone.
The anger is gone.
All that's left is a frightened man searching for meaning.
Then his gaze softens.
Immediately.
The moment it lands on you.
Like the answer had been sitting in front of him all along.
"Just before I thought the darkness was finally gonna take me..."
His voice cracks slightly.
Barely noticeable.
But you hear it.
"I thought about you."
You swallow hard.
Dex looks away for a moment.
Almost embarrassed by the confession.
Then continues anyway.
"I didn't think about Fisk."
"I didn't think about Daredevil."
"I didn't think about any of it."
His jaw tightens.
"I just thought about you."
The truck suddenly feels too small.
Too quiet.
Too intimate.
You can't seem to look away.
"I wondered what you were doing."
A faint smile.
"I figured you were probably worrying."
That almost makes you laugh.
Almost.
Then his expression shifts.
Something raw opening beneath it.
"And I missed you."
The words come out so softly you almost miss them.
Like he's admitting something shameful.
Something he wasn't supposed to say aloud.
"I missed you a lot."
Your eyes burn immediately.
"Dex..."
"I know."
He shakes his head.
"I know."
His gaze drops to his hands.
"I know I don't get to ask for things."
The words hit harder than they should.
Because for once he sounds like he believes it.
"But I did."
His eyes lift again.
Straight to yours.
"And I prayed."
You freeze.
Because Dex never talks about praying lightly.
Never.
His voice is barely above a whisper now.
"I prayed I'd see you again."
Your chest aches.
"And if I died..."
His mouth trembles slightly.
Just once.
"So stupid."
A small depreciative laugh at himself before continuing—
"If I die..."
His eyes never leave yours.
"I want it to be where you could see me."
The tears hit before you realize they're coming.
"I don't want to disappear somewhere you couldn't find me."
A pause.
Painfully small.
Painfully honest.
"I won’t be able to accept that."
And suddenly the truck feels far too small to contain the weight of what he's just handed you.
You nod weakly, dragging the heel of your hand beneath your eyes to wipe away the tears gathering there. Your fingers tremble slightly as you do it.
"Don't worry," you whisper.
The words come out uneven, your voice shaking around them.
"That won't happen."
Dex watches you with an intensity that makes your chest ache. His eyes don't leave your face for a second, as if he's searching for any sign that you don't mean it.
"I'll always be here."
You lean closer and reach for him, letting your hand settle against his arm. Your thumb moves in slow circles over the fabric of his sleeve.
The gesture is automatic.
Instinctive.
The same way you would soothe someone frightened after a nightmare.
The same way you would comfort someone who looked like they were barely holding themselves together.
"Just sit back, okay?"
You force a small smile, though it feels fragile.
"Let's get you home."
Home.
The word hangs in the air between you.
You watch it hit him.
Something in Dex immediately softens.
His shoulders loosen.
His breathing slows.
Like the word itself has wrapped around him.
Slowly, almost cautiously, he lifts one hand.
The movement draws your attention to the damage there.
Dried blood darkens his knuckles.
Thin scratches cut across his skin.
His fingers are rough and bruised.
Evidence of everything he's been through.
Everything he survived.
You don't pull away when he reaches for your hand.
You don't think you could.
Not now.
Not after everything that's happened.
His fingers curl carefully around yours, treating your hand like something fragile.
Something precious.
Then he lifts it toward his face.
His lips brush your fingertips first.
A feather-light touch.
Then your knuckles.
One by one.
Lingering for a moment on each.
Not rushed.
Not desperate.
Almost reverent.
Like he's trying to commit every detail to memory.
Like he's grateful you're letting him hold on at all.
When his lips finally press against the inside of your wrist, warmth blooms beneath your skin.
You feel the faint curve of his smile against your pulse.
Feel the soft exhale of his breath.
Then—
"Let's get married."
For a moment, your mind simply stalls.
The words reach you.
You hear them clearly.
But they refuse to make sense.
Like your brain can't quite arrange them into something real.
Dex keeps talking before you can respond.
"I don't think it'd be a big wedding."
His thumb drifts back and forth across the back of your hand in absentminded strokes.
"Probably small."
A quiet chuckle escapes him.
"I don't really have family."
Your stomach drops so suddenly it feels like missing a step in the dark.
Oh.
He's serious.
Completely serious.
"The only people there would probably be your dad."
Another small laugh.
Soft.
Almost shy.
"Maybe some of my old coworkers."
His brow furrows as he considers it.
"Though they might call the police."
"Dex."
You barely recognize your own voice.
It's thin.
Breathless.
His eyes lift to yours immediately.
Soft.
Hopeful.
Completely open.
The look on his face hurts.
Not because it's happy.
Because it's vulnerable.
Because he's looking at you like the answer matters more than anything else in the world.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean exactly that."
The response comes instantly.
Without hesitation.
Without uncertainty.
Like this is the most obvious thing he's ever said.
Like he's already made peace with the decision.
"I thought about what you said."
His fingers tighten around yours.
Not enough to hurt.
Just enough to hold on.
"The husband."
"The family."
"The life."
Emotion catches in his throat.
You see him swallow hard.
His jaw flexes.
"I think I can do that."
"Dex—"
"I do."
For the first time, urgency slips into his voice.
Not anger.
Not frustration.
Fear.
Raw and unmistakable.
The fear of someone desperate to be understood.
"I think I can be that man."
His eyes glisten beneath the light.
Bright with emotion.
"I think I can be good."
The words hit you like a stone dropped into deep water.
Because there it is.
The truth underneath everything else.
Not marriage.
Not children.
Not a house.
Not a future.
Good.
He's still talking about being good.
Still chasing it.
Still reaching for it with both hands.
Like it's always just beyond his grasp.
Like every time he gets close, it slips away again.
"Doll..."
His voice cracks.
Just slightly.
Barely enough to hear.
But enough.
"I think God gave me another chance."
Your throat tightens painfully.
No.
Not God.
Not destiny.
Not fate.
This isn't faith.
It's survival.
You can see it happening.
Right in front of you.
The same way someone reaches for a ledge while falling.
The same way a drowning person breaks the surface and gasps for air.
Dex almost died.
The thing he convinced himself would fix him didn't work.
The darkness is still there.
The emptiness is still there.
The fear is still there.
You can see all of it in the way his shoulders remain tense despite his smile.
In the way his fingers refuse to let go of yours.
In the way his eyes keep searching your face.
And now he's looking for something else to hold onto.
Something that will finally make sense of everything.
Something that will finally make him feel whole.
Something that will finally explain why he survived when he shouldn't have.
And somehow—
Horribly—
That something is you.
"I think you saved me."
Tears spill over before he can stop them.
They slide silently down his cheeks.
He doesn't wipe them away.
Doesn't seem to notice them at all.
His entire focus remains fixed on you.
"I really do."
You stare at him.
At the hope shining in his eyes.
At the desperation buried beneath it.
At the tears tracking down his face.
At the way he's clutching your hand like it's the only solid thing left in the world.
Like letting go might send him drifting somewhere he can't come back from.
And suddenly you understand something that terrifies you.
This isn't a proposal.
Not really.
It's a lifeline.
A plea wrapped in the shape of a future.
For a moment, you try to picture it.
Marriage.
The word settles strangely in your chest.
Not because you have never imagined it before.
You have.
God, you have.
When you were younger, you used to imagine a little blue house somewhere quiet. A porch swing that creaked in the evenings. A garden you never quite managed to keep alive.
You imagined coming home from work to someone already there.
Someone normal.
Someone who would complain about coworkers and traffic and bills.
Someone who would leave coffee mugs in the sink and forget anniversaries and ask what was for dinner.
You imagined children.
Small hands.
Tiny shoes by the front door.
A face that looked a little like yours and a little like theirs.
Something steady.
Something ordinary.
Something safe.
Your eyes sting.
Because suddenly—
you realize none of those daydreams ever had Dex in them.
Not once.
And somehow that hurts more than it should.
Your gaze drops to him.
To the dried blood still staining his jaw.
To the exhaustion carved into his face.
To the way he is looking at you now.
Like a man hanging from the edge of a cliff.
Like if you let go, there will be nothing beneath him.
A terrible sadness settles inside your chest.
Not fear.
Not regret.
Grief.
Pure grief.
Because you understand now.
You understand that loving Dex has never been about choosing between a good future and a bad one.
It is choosing between him—
and the future itself.
You know what marriage will not do.
It will not cure him.
It will not heal whatever lives inside him.
It will not make him gentle.
It will not make him normal.
Tomorrow he will still be Benjamin Poindexter.
Still impulsive.
Still obsessive.
Still reaching for violence the way other people reach for comfort.
A wedding ring will not change that.
Your love will not change that.
Nothing will.
Because there is nothing broken in him waiting to be fixed.
This is who he is.
And this realization should make letting go easier.
It should.
But when you imagine pulling your hand from his—
when you imagine watching him disappear from your life—
when you imagine never hearing his voice again—
never feeling his hand searching for yours—
never seeing that ridiculous smile he only seems capable of giving you—
something inside you cracks.
A sob catches in your throat.
Because for all the lives you could have lived—
all the futures you could have chosen—
every road that doesn't have Dex in it suddenly feels unbearably empty.
Not happier.
Not brighter.
Just empty.
And maybe that is the cruelest part.
You know he will never become the man you once dreamed of.
But somewhere along the way—
without meaning to—
he became the man you loved.
The tears finally spill over.
You lower your head.
And for the first time since he said those words—
since he asked for forever as casually as asking for the time—
you realize the choice was never really between yes and no.
It was between grief and grief.
And no matter which one you choose—
something will be lost.
Dex sees your tears and mistakes them for joy.
Of course he does.
He has seen it before.
In movies.
In television shows.
Women cry when they get proposed to.
Women cry when they are happy.
Women cry when they are loved.
So when he sees you covering your face with your hand, shoulders trembling beneath the pale light spilling through the windshield, he smiles.
A small, relieved smile.
As if the hardest part is over.
"Hey."
His voice is soft.
Careful.
Almost hesitant.
"You don't have to cry."
A breathless laugh escapes him, quiet and nervous.
"I mean... unless they're good tears."
One of his hands lifts slowly.
Tentatively.
Like he's afraid moving too quickly might shatter the moment.
His fingers brush across your forehead, gently sweeping a few loose strands of hair away from your face. The touch is feather-light, lingering for just a second before his hand settles against your temple.
The gesture makes you look up at him.
Your eyes are red.
Glossy with tears.
Your lashes damp.
And the moment Dex sees them, something in his expression softens even further.
The nervousness fades.
The uncertainty.
All that's left is affection.
His hand slides down to your cheek.
Warm.
Careful.
Cupping your face as though you're something fragile.
Something precious.
His thumb brushes beneath your eye, catching a tear before it can fall.
Then another.
And another.
Wiping away tears that refuse to stop coming.
"You know..." he says quietly, almost shyly. "I've thought about it before."
His gaze drops briefly to your joined hands resting between you.
His thumb strokes absentmindedly across your knuckles.
"More times than I'd admit."
A small smile pulls at the corner of his mouth.
Embarrassed.
Fond.
"And every time I did..."
His eyes lift back to yours.
Steady.
Earnest.
"I couldn't picture anybody else standing there."
The words land like stones in your chest.
Heavy.
Unavoidable.
Because he means them.
Every single one.
There isn't a trace of manipulation in his face.
No calculation.
No hidden motive.
No attempt to convince you.
Just love.
Pure and terrifying.
The kind that asks for everything without realizing how much it's asking.
The kind that trusts completely.
His hand remains against your cheek.
Warm.
Gentle.
Cradling your face as though it is something precious.
Something breakable.
His thumb continues to move in slow, absent circles against your skin.
Comforting you.
Trying to soothe tears he doesn't understand.
And the worst part is—
he thinks this is a beautiful moment.
He thinks this is what happiness looks like.
He thinks the tears running down your face are because you've been handed a future.
Not because you're mourning one.
Patiently, he waits.
Waits for the answer.
For the word that will settle the restless thing inside him.
The word that will finally let him believe he isn't alone anymore.
The word that will give meaning to surviving.
The word that will keep him from falling.
You stare at him.
At the dried blood beneath his nose.
At the faint bruising beginning to darken along his jaw.
At the exhaustion sitting heavy beneath his eyes.
The exhaustion of a man who has spent years carrying more than he should.
And beneath all of it—
the hope.
God.
The hope.
It's everywhere.
In the way he's looking at you.
In the way he's holding your hand.
In the way he's waiting so patiently, as though he already trusts the answer.
And suddenly you realize you already made your choice the moment you started searching for him.
The moment you climbed into your car.
The moment you spent all night driving through Hell's Kitchen with your heart lodged somewhere in your throat.
The moment every unanswered call made you panic.
The moment relief hurt more than fear when you finally saw he was alive.
You were never standing at a crossroads.
You were only pretending to.
A sob escapes you.
Small.
Broken.
Your eyes squeeze shut.
Fresh tears spill over despite your efforts to stop them.
Then you nod.
Once.
Twice.
The movement is barely noticeable.
But it changes everything.
"Yes."
Your voice breaks around the word.
Fragile.
Unsteady.
You swallow hard and try again.
"Yes."
More tears slide down your cheeks.
Not because you're certain.
Not because you're happy.
Not because this will save either of you.
But because you love him.
Because despite everything, despite all the reasons you shouldn't, despite every fear clawing at your chest—
you love him.
And somehow that feels far more frightening than anything else.
"Yes," you whisper.
Your lips tremble.
Your throat tightens.
Then finally—
"Let's get married."
OC!Reader the biggest mama bird of them all. 😞😞😞
Thank you for the read everyone and as you guys must have guessed it.....next chapter is the last chapter. Whatttttt?!
Yep, Log 4 will be the final chapter of Northbound.
This ended up being a pretty short series, but this is mainly because I'm preparing to embark on a new journey in my own life. This is why I think I'll be stepping away from the writing world for a little while.
It's been an incredible experience. Your comments, support, and encouragement have meant more to me than I can properly express, and they played a huge part in helping me see this story through to the end.
Thank you for reading, for sharing your thoughts, and for joining me on this journey.
Summary: Some illusions are harder to abandon than people.
C.W: unhealthy relationships, codependency, emotional dependency, obsessive love, grief, suicidal ideation, references to mental illness, self-destructive behavior, blood/injury, violence, emotional manipulation (unintentional), death anxiety, abandonment fears, yearning
<<<Previous Chapter ⋆♱ ݁ Next Chapter>>>
♰╰♯₊⊹Masterlist♰╰♯₊⊹
Reader quickly shuts the door behind her.
The click of the lock sounds unnaturally loud.
Immediately she reaches for her phone.
Her fingers fumble slightly as she scrolls to Dex's contact.
Then presses call.
The phone rings.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Reader presses the device tighter against her ear.
Come on.
Come on.
Come on.
Then—
"The number you are trying to reach—"
Reader immediately hangs up.
"No."
She stares at the screen.
Calls again.
The same result.
Again.
The same.
Again.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
The silence feels deafening.
A horrible pressure begins building inside her chest.
Suddenly every terrible possibility arrives all at once.
Did somebody find him?
Did the AVTF finally catch up?
Did Fisk?
Did somebody recognize him?
Did he get cornered somewhere?
Did he get hurt?
No.
No.
If he had been captured it would have been everywhere.
Every newspaper.
Every television channel.
Josh would've known.
Josh reads the news every morning.
The entire city would know if Benjamin Poindexter had been arrested.
Which means—
Reader's hand flies to her mouth.
A cold wave rushes through her body.
No.
No no no.
Please don't let it be that.
Immediately her imagination betrays her.
An alley.
Dark.
Hidden from the street.
AVTF officers.
Angry ones.
The kind who had lost friends because of him.
The kind who might decide not to file paperwork afterward.
A gun.
A body.
Gunshots.
Sharp.
Close.
Final.
Reader physically flinches.
Her eyes squeeze shut.
As though she can actually hear them.
"No..."
The word escapes her before she can stop it.
Her breathing becomes uneven.
Too fast.
Too shallow.
She presses herself back against the nearest wall.
Trying to steady herself.
Trying to think.
But all she can see are flashes.
Every horrible possibility her mind can invent.
Every ending.
Every death.
Every goodbye she never got to say.
Because she didn't mean it.
God.
She didn't mean it.
Not really.
Not the way it sounded.
Not the way she made it sound.
Tears blur her vision.
Reader stares down at the floor.
At the dark stains scattered between shattered glass.
Small flecks of dried blood.
Old enough to have turned brown.
Her chest tightens painfully.
Whose blood is that?
Some officer's?
Some stranger's?
Or—
Dex's?
A broken hiccup escapes her.
For the first time in her life she finds herself praying for something she once hated.
She hopes he was cruel.
She hopes he was faster.
More ruthless.
More violent.
More terrifying.
Because if he was—
then maybe he survived.
Maybe he's still alive.
Maybe she can still find him.
Maybe she can still apologize.
A real apology.
Not the awkward half-formed attempts she kept rehearsing in her head.
Not pride.
Not excuses.
Not distance.
Just honesty.
Because yes.
She had imagined his death.
She had.
But every version of it had always come wrapped in grief.
The same grief crushing her now.
Reader slowly sinks onto the floor.
The familiar hardwood presses against her legs.
She looks around the apartment.
These yellow walls.
These cheap cracked windows.
This ridiculous little studio.
For three days she had called this place home.
For three days she had let herself belong here.
Allowed herself to belong here.
Allowed herself to belong to him.
And God help her—
she had wanted it.
Wanted him.
Wanted this.
For seven years.
Seven years.
Her eyes drift toward the bed.
And then—
she pauses.
Something feels wrong.
Reader blinks.
Looks again.
The bed.
The bed isn't touched.
Everything else in the apartment looks like a hurricane tore through it.
Yet the bed stands untouched.
You approach the bed slowly.
Almost cautiously.
Each step feels measured, deliberate, as though moving too quickly might disturb something invisible lingering in the room.
Like the bed is a trap.
Like if you make one wrong move, the entire apartment might finally reveal whatever secret it's been hiding from you.
The closer you get, the stranger it looks.
Everything else in the room bears the scars of violence.
The overturned furniture scattered across the floor.
The shattered glass glittering beneath the dim light.
The dried blood staining walls and hardwood alike.
The television with a coin buried deep in its cracked screen.
Every corner of the apartment tells the story of chaos.
Yet the bed remains untouched.
Neat.
Perfect.
Waiting.
The sheets are smooth and wrinkle-free, the pillows arranged with almost unsettling precision.
It looks less like a place someone slept and more like something carefully prepared.
You stop at its edge.
For a moment, you simply stare.
Trying to make sense of it.
Trying to understand why this one thing was spared.
Then your first instinct arrives.
Mess it up.
Destroy the perfection.
Because it doesn't belong here.
Not in this apartment.
Not after everything else you've seen.
Without another thought, your fingers hook beneath the embroidered green blanket and yank.
The covers slide away in one swift motion.
Fabric rustles loudly in the silence.
You brace yourself.
For blood.
For bullet holes.
For something awful hidden beneath the surface.
Instead—
you freeze.
A mint-green gift box sits neatly in the center of the mattress.
Wrapped with a pristine white ribbon.
Waiting.
As though it has been expecting you.
Your breath catches.
Immediately, you know it's for you.
Of course it is.
Who else would it be for?
Slowly, you lower yourself onto the edge of the bed and pick it up.
The box is heavier than you expect.
Solid.
Dense.
The weight settles into your palms and immediately your stomach sinks.
Heavy means something inside.
Something real.
Something intentional.
Something chosen.
Your fingers tremble slightly as you notice a folded note tucked carefully beneath the ribbon.
Carefully, you pull it free.
The paper is worn at the edges, folded with surprising neatness.
Just one sentence.
Written in familiar handwriting.
Don't ever say I never promised you a rose garden.
You stare at the words.
No signature.
No explanation.
None needed.
A breath leaves you so suddenly it almost hurts.
Relief.
Pure, overwhelming relief.
It crashes through your chest so fast it leaves you dizzy.
He's alive.
Thank God.
He's alive.
Not captured.
Not dead.
Not bleeding out somewhere in an alley.
Alive.
Somewhere.
Running from something.
Chasing something.
Doing something reckless and dangerous and completely insane.
But alive.
Your legs finally give up trying to hold you together.
You sink onto the mattress.
One hand presses against your eyes.
The other still grips the note tightly enough to wrinkle the paper.
For a moment, that's enough.
Just knowing he's still breathing.
Just knowing he made this.
Just knowing he had enough time to leave something behind.
The apartment suddenly feels less empty.
Less final.
Then your gaze drops back to the box.
And immediately the anxiety returns.
Because if there is one thing you hate—
it's surprises.
And somehow surprises become infinitely worse when they're coming from Benjamin Poindexter.
Carefully, you untie the ribbon.
The white fabric slips free with a soft whisper.
The bow falls apart beneath your fingers.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
As if whatever waits inside might leap out at you if you're careless.
Your pulse pounds in your ears.
Finally, your fingers find the edge of the lid.
You hesitate.
Then lift.
Inside—
you expect something horrifying.
A severed finger.
A bloody keepsake.
Something stolen.
Something that would make perfect sense coming from Dex.
Instead—
it's a gun.
You blink.
Once.
Twice.
For a moment, your brain refuses to process what you're seeing.
Then slowly, you reach inside.
The familiar weight settles into your hands immediately.
Cold metal.
Heavy.
Solid.
Real.
Your chest tightens.
You know this gun.
Of course you do.
It's Dex's.
The same gun.
The one you took from him.
The same gun you once held against him, the barrel pressed to his forehead while tears filled your eyes.
The gray metal catches the light as you turn it over.
Familiar despite its weight.
Too large in your hands.
Too heavy.
Too dangerous.
Yet impossible to put down.
Because attached to it are memories.
Too many memories.
Conversations.
Arguments.
Promises.
Moments you wish you could forget and moments you never want to lose.
Then something catches your eye.
You pause.
There—
scratched into the side of the metal.
Not professionally engraved.
Not polished or precise.
Hand-carved.
The letters uneven.
Imperfect.
Done by someone using whatever sharp object they could find.
Your thumb drifts across the carving.
Feeling every rough groove.
Every imperfect line.
Every deliberate mark.
Northstar.
Your breath catches again.
He carved this.
For you.
Your thumb lingers over the letters.
Tracing them again.
And again.
As though touching them might somehow explain what he was thinking when he carved them.
Then your gaze drops back into the box.
The remaining contents finally register.
Bullets.
Neatly arranged in careful rows.
Waiting beside the gun.
Immediately the memory returns.
I'll get you bullets.
I'll be your gun.
The words echo through your mind.
Clear as the day he said them.
And suddenly the relief from moments ago begins twisting into something else.
Something colder.
Something heavier.
A knot forms in your stomach.
You stare at the weapon in your hands.
The apartment feels quieter now.
The silence pressing in from every side.
And for the first time since finding the box—
a different thought settles into your chest.
Not where is he?
But—
What is he planning to do?
The city breathed beneath him.
Even in the middle of summer, Hell's Kitchen never truly slept. Traffic crawled through the streets in endless streams of red taillights. Laughter drifted up from crowded sidewalks. Music spilled from open bar doors. Somewhere below, a drunk man shouted something incomprehensible before being drowned out by the roar of passing cars.
And above it all came the cheers.
Thousands of voices gathered around Fogwell's Gym.
A high-profile charity boxing match, with Wilson Fisk himself stepping into the ring.
His victory lap.
People stood in lines stretching around the block, eager for a glimpse of their mayor.
Their hero.
The city loved him.
A part of it at least.
Yet—
The thought still made something bitter curl in Dex's stomach.
From the rooftop across the street, he watched the gym in silence.
The distance.
The angles.
The entrances.
The exits.
Every possibility unfolded behind his eyes with mechanical precision.
If Vanessa entered through the main entrance.
If she entered through the private entrance.
If security shifted.
If the police responded.
If he was forced onto the street.
If he was cornered.
If he died.
Especially if he died.
Dex adjusted the gloves covering his hands.
Then adjusted them again.
A nervous habit.
The realization made him frown.
Nervous.
The word felt foreign.
He had stood in front of armed men without shaking.
Had walked into gunfire.
Had faced death more times than he could count.
Yet now—
His fingers wouldn't stop trembling.
Not because of Vanessa.
Not because of Fisk.
Something else.
Something he couldn't quite name.
"You're scared?"
The voice came from behind him.
Soft.
Familiar.
Dex froze.
His heart stumbled painfully in his chest.
At the edge of the rooftop sat Y/N.
As if she had always been there.
As if she belonged there.
The warm glow of the city painted her features in gold and amber. Her bare feet swung lazily over open air. Wind tangled itself through her hair, lifting loose strands that danced around her face.
For one stupid, irrational second, Dex worried she was sitting too close to the edge.
As though she might fall.
As though gravity applied to her.
As though she was really there.
"You look nervous."
A smile tugged at her lips.
The kind that always felt like she knew something he didn't.
"Come on," she said lightly, amusement dancing in her voice. "Vanessa wouldn't stand a chance against your knives. You know that."
Dex looked away.
His hand drifted toward one of the blades hidden beneath his jacket.
He drew it slowly.
Steel gleamed beneath the city lights.
Turning the knife between his fingers, he watched his reflection move across the polished surface.
Distorted.
Broken.
Unrecognizable.
"You think this ends with Vanessa?"
Her voice was closer now.
When had she stood up?
Dex didn't know.
He only knew she was beside him now.
Close enough for him to catch the scent of her if she had been real.
Close enough to hurt.
“Back then, you thought it would all be over once Fisk was gone.”
She stepped beside him.
“And when they locked you away, you told yourself that was the end of it, too.”
The knife stopped turning in his hand.
“Then you found me again, and for a while, you thought maybe that would finally make everything okay.”
Dex stared into his reflection.
His own hazel eyes stared back.
Not Bullseye.
Not the FBI agent.
Not Fisk's attack dog.
Just Benjamin.
Broken Benjamin.
The one nobody wanted.
The one he spent years trying to outrun.
"You've been running for so long."
Her voice softened.
Not cruel.
Not angry.
Just sad.
"From Fisk."
A pause.
"From the hospital."
Another.
"From yourself."
The city seemed quieter suddenly.
As if the world itself was holding its breath.
"Aren't you tired yet?"
Dex swallowed.
The question struck somewhere deeper than any knife ever could.
His jaw tightened.
The reflection in the blade remained unchanged.
Still him.
Always him.
"You can't run from it, Dex..."
Reader muttered.
Her feather-light hand settled over Dex's gloved hand that held the dagger.
He couldn't feel her.
Not even her warmth.
Of course.
Yet—
"You can't run away from who you are..."
Her voice was barely above a whisper.
Soft.
Gentle.
The knife remained still between his fingers.
"You will always... be a killer at heart."
The words should have cut.
Should have hurt.
Instead, they stilled his hands.
As if some truth buried deep inside him had finally surfaced.
As if a clarity so absolute had settled over him that nothing could shake it loose.
Dex couldn't see her face.
Couldn't see what expression she wore as she whispered those cruel words so sweetly.
All he could see were her hands.
Soft hands resting over his own.
Her fingers draped across the glove wrapped around the hand that held the knife.
Dex stared at them.
Memorizing them.
The curve of her knuckles.
The shape of her nails.
The small mole on her forefinger.
His throat tightened.
"I'll... always love you... Y/N."
The words escaped him quietly.
Barely audible beneath the sounds of the city.
Reader said nothing.
Slowly, she withdrew her hand.
Pulling away from his.
Her fingers slid along his forearm one last time.
A touch he couldn't feel.
A goodbye he couldn't stop.
Then—
Nothing.
Dex turned.
Quickly.
Desperately.
Wanting to see her one last time.
But she was gone.
No Y/N.
No smile.
No voice.
Only the city.
Only the distant roar of traffic.
Only the cheers rising from the streets below for Wilson Fisk.
Dex stood alone on the rooftop.
And for the first time, he didn't fight the truth.
Yes.
He was a killer.
Dex turned back toward the street.
His gaze settling on Hell's Kitchen below.
On the flashing blue lights spilling through the glass of Fogwell's Gym.
The city roared around him.
Uncaring.
Unchanging.
And he would do what killers do.
The night feels different.
Not quieter—New York never gives quiet—but heavier, like the air itself has changed its mind about staying still.
You’re at the sink with your hands submerged in warm, soapy water, watching dishes slip between your fingers. The kitchen is lit in that familiar yellow glow your father always prefers, soft and slightly tired at the edges. Somewhere deeper in the apartment, the television hums low, a news anchor’s voice bleeding faintly through the walls.
You don’t fully listen at first.
It’s just background noise.
Just life continuing in its usual shape.
Your ankle feels better now. The wound has scabbed over properly, tight and dry under the bandage. It probably will leave a scar, but that thought doesn’t really register as something important. You’ve had enough of them already. Small ones. Forgotten ones. Some from accidents. Some from moments you don’t like remembering too closely.
And then—
Dex.
The thought doesn’t arrive gently. It interrupts everything else, as if it had been waiting just beneath the surface for the right moment to surface again.
Your hands pause over the plate.
Wet porcelain. Soap sliding between your fingers. The faint scrape of the sink beneath it all.
And suddenly he is there—not physically, not even as a clear memory, but as a presence threaded through you in a way that feels almost inconvenient in its intimacy.
Like he never learned how to exist at a respectful distance.
What you always noticed about him—what you never quite had words for—wasn’t softness. Not exactly.
It was absence of judgment.
With Dex, you never had to translate yourself.
Never had to calculate how you looked from the outside. Never had to become aware of your own face in the middle of a conversation, or the angle of your body, or the weight of being perceived.
It didn’t happen.
He didn’t look at you like you were being evaluated.
He looked at you like you were already decided.
Already enough.
As if there had never been a version of you that needed fixing.
That quiet certainty had always unsettled you in its own way—not because it was cruel, but because it was absolute. He didn’t make space for your insecurities to exist in the room between you. They just… stopped mattering in his presence, like they had no authority there.
Even the things you had long accepted about yourself—things you assumed were simply true of you, unchangeable facts of your body, your face, your presence—somehow dissolved when he was looking at you.
Not because they changed.
But because he never treated them as flaws to begin with.
Like your existence wasn’t something that had to earn softness.
It already deserved it.
And that was the strange part.
Because it wasn’t gentle in the way people usually mean it.
It wasn’t careful reassurance.
It was devotion in the form of certainty.
As if simply being near you was not something he was receiving from you—but something you were giving him without even trying.
And worse than that—
something he would have taken even if you hadn’t known how to give it.
Your grip tightens slightly on the plate.
Soap slips over your knuckles.
For a moment, you realize how easily that feeling has followed you into silence.
How it doesn’t matter whether he is beside you or not.
It stays.
Uninvited.
Unresolved.
Like something that never asked permission to become part of you.
Then the voice from the television sharpens—professional, urgent, clipped into that unmistakable rhythm of breaking news.
“—we are receiving confirmed reports of an attack at Fogwell’s Gym tonight.”
You freeze.
The dish slips slightly in your grip.
The anchor continues, faster now.
“Sources on the ground say Mayor Wilson Fisk was present at a scheduled public appearance when chaos erupted inside the venue—”
A pause. A shift in tone.
“—involving multiple armed assailants.”
Your fingers tighten around the edge of the sink.
The plate trembles.
The reporter presses on, words stacking too quickly to fully process.
“Eyewitnesses describe masked individuals engaging in violent activity inside the gym floor. Early reports identify at least two figures—one referred to as Bullseye and another believed to be the vigilante known as Daredevil.”
The world narrows.
Just those names.
Bullseye.
Daredevil.
And something inside your chest goes completely still.
The anchor’s voice lowers, more grave now.
“Gunfire was reported on site. Emergency responders confirm that Vanessa Fisk has been injured and transported to hospital care.”
A beat.
Then—
“Unconfirmed footage appears to show Mayor Fisk also engaging the assailants before being pulled from the scene.”
Your breath catches before your mind fully understands why.
The plate falls from your hands.
It hits the sink with a dull, wet sound and you’re already moving before it even finishes breaking.
Barefoot down the hallway.
Heart hammering so hard it feels like it’s pushing against your ribs from the inside out.
“Dad—?”
Your voice doesn’t feel like it belongs to you.
The living room is dimmer than the kitchen, the television casting flickering light across your father’s face. He’s sitting forward now, completely still, eyes locked onto the screen like the world has narrowed into that single rectangle of glass.
You barely register him at first.
Not until the camera stabilizes.
Not until the footage sharpens just enough for your mind to catch up with what your eyes are seeing.
Grainy security feed. Overhead angles. Harsh lighting bleeding into static.
Fogwell’s Gym is chaos.
A packed ring of bodies, movement colliding in every direction, security pushing through crowds that are already breaking apart at the seams. Shouts layered over shouts. Something explosive in the air that the camera cannot quite translate properly.
And then—
A figure cuts through it.
A masked man.
Moving too cleanly to belong in a place like this.
He doesn’t run so much as calculate through motion.
Knives flick through the air with brutal precision, flashing silver arcs under the gym lights as they strike toward AVTF officers pushing through the crowd.
Your breath catches without permission.
Because something in your body recognizes him before your mind does.
That shoulder.
That stance.
That controlled, mechanical economy of movement.
It hits you like a physical blow.
That shoulder you’ve traced absentmindedly when he thought you were asleep.
That same frame you’ve watched sitting at the edge of a bed in the early hours of morning, still and unreadable, like he belonged more to silence than to people.
Dex.
Your stomach drops so violently it feels like something inside you detaches entirely.
“No…” it slips out of you, barely audible.
Not denial.
Recognition.
Your gaze locks onto the screen.
He moves again.
The masked figure—Dex—rises slightly above the chaos, arm snapping forward.
Something leaves his hand.
A sharp arc.
It cuts through the air toward the ring—
Toward Vanessa Fisk.
Time stutters.
She turns.
She sees it.
And then—
A gun.
Your body goes cold before your brain can fully process it.
A flash.
A soundless impact through the grainy footage.
Dex’s body jerks.
Just slightly.
But enough.
Enough that your entire chest collapses inward.
“No—no, no, no—”
It spills out of you, broken and unfiltered.
Your hands fly to your mouth without thought, pressing too hard against your lips like you can physically hold the sound back.
Behind you, your father turns sharply.
“Hey—hey, what is it? Do you know him?”
You don’t answer.
You can’t.
Your vision is locked on the screen like something has physically pinned you in place.
Dex stumbles in the footage.
Just for a second.
His movements don’t stop—but they change.
Sharpen.
Become more desperate.
More violent.
He keeps throwing knives.
Keeps forcing his way forward through incoming officers, through chaos, through resistance that folds under his precision.
But you don’t see anything else anymore.
Only him.
Only the way his body tightens.
The way he absorbs the hit and keeps moving anyway.
Something in your throat breaks.
Please.
The thought isn’t even formed as words.
Just instinct.
Raw.
Unfiltered.
Please—someone—
Your hands stay over your mouth, trembling now.
If you blink, it feels like betrayal.
If you look away, it feels like abandonment.
So you don’t.
You stare until it hurts.
And then—
A shift in the footage.
A sudden drop in the frame.
A new presence enters like a rupture in the scene itself.
A figure in red.
Daredevil.
The baton snaps forward with impossible precision, striking Fisk’s weapon mid-motion.
The gun flies out of frame.
Fisk staggers.
A split-second opening.
Enough.
Your lungs finally release a breath you didn’t realize you had been holding.
But there’s no relief yet.
Not fully.
Because the footage doesn’t slow.
Daredevil moves again.
He hooks Dex—
grabs him mid-chaos—
and in one fluid motion, launches both of them out of frame, disappearing into the blur of motion and static as the camera struggles to keep up.
Dex is gone.
Your breath breaks.
Sharp. Shaking.
“Oh my God…”
It comes out again—but this time it’s different.
Not panic.
Not fear.
Something sharper.
Something that breaks cleanly through everything else.
A breath catches in your throat as the image on the screen finally settles into meaning, not just motion.
“He’s alive…”
The words don’t feel like they’re spoken.
They feel like they’re realized.
Like something inside you had been holding its breath for far too long and is only now allowed to collapse back into place.
Alive.
Alive.
Your knees threaten to give out, not from shock, but from the sheer release of it—like your body doesn’t know what to do with the absence of dread it had already prepared itself to carry.
For a moment, everything else disappears.
The chaos. The noise. The fear. Even the blood your mind had already started to imagine.
None of it matters.
Only that one fact remains, clean and absolute, cutting through everything else like a line drawn through darkness.
He’s alive.
Behind you, your father’s voice sharpens, confused now, edged with concern.
“Wait—what are you talking about? You know that guy?”
But it doesn’t land.
Not properly.
It’s like you’re hearing him from underwater.
Your body has already moved before your thoughts catch up.
Your hands are shaking so badly you almost drop your phone as you shove it away. You don’t even register grabbing your coat properly—only the urgency of needing to be out of the room, out of the apartment, out of this moment where you are not with him.
Because now that you know he is alive, everything else becomes irrelevant.
Not speculation.
Not fear.
Not uncertainty.
Only direction.
Only movement.
Your heart is beating too fast, too loud, like it’s trying to outrun your thoughts.
“I have to go,” you say, voice breaking slightly on the edges of control.
“Where are you going?” your father calls again, sharper now.
But you’re already at the door.
Your hand hits the handle.
And for the first time in the entire night—
there is no hesitation.
Only certainty so intense it burns through everything else.
Dex is alive and he needs you.
The city feels endless.
You drive through Hell's Kitchen with both hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel, your gaze constantly shifting from one side of the street to the other. The neighborhood stretches around you in a blur of brick, concrete, and amber light, familiar streets transformed by the late hour into something quieter and stranger.
Come on.
Come on.
The words repeat endlessly in your head, keeping time with the hum of the engine and the rhythmic sweep of your windshield wipers.
A prayer.
A plea.
A desperate attempt to will him into existence.
Your pickup rolls slowly past rows of aging apartment buildings, their windows glowing sporadically against the darkness. Pools of orange light spill from old streetlamps onto cracked sidewalks. Every alleyway catches your attention. Every narrow gap between buildings feels like a place someone could disappear into.
Your pulse jumps whenever you catch movement.
A figure stepping out of a doorway.
Someone lingering beneath an awning.
A man crossing the street with his hands shoved into his pockets.
You slow instinctively at intersections, peering down side streets and into shadows.
Looking twice at every broad-shouldered silhouette.
Every limping pedestrian.
Every glimpse of black clothing disappearing around a corner.
For a moment, hope flares.
Then reality follows.
Not him.
You don't know whether calling would help.
You glance at your phone sitting on the passenger seat.
The screen stays dark.
Dex hasn't called.
Hasn't texted.
Nothing.
The silence feels heavier than bad news ever could.
Bad news would at least mean certainty.
It would mean knowing.
This is something worse.
An absence.
A hollow space where Dex should be.
So you keep driving.
You circle past Fogwell's Gym.
Then three blocks north.
Then east.
Then back around again.
Then south.
The route changes, but somehow you always end up retracing your steps.
Again.
And again.
And again.
The same intersections begin to blur together. The same storefronts pass by your windows. The same graffiti-covered walls and shuttered businesses appear so often that the city starts to feel less like a place and more like a labyrinth designed specifically to keep you searching.
Hours slip by unnoticed.
The adrenaline that sent you rushing out of your father's apartment has long since faded, leaving behind a deeper, heavier exhaustion.
Your shoulders ache from tension.
Your eyes sting from staring into the darkness.
Your fingers have grown stiff around the steering wheel.
Every time you consider turning around, something inside you recoils.
Not yet.
You can't.
Maybe he's on the next street.
Maybe he's around the next corner.
Maybe he's sitting in some alleyway you haven't checked yet.
You tell yourself these things over and over.
The same promise.
The same excuse.
The same fragile thread of hope that keeps you moving.
Your headlights sweep across another row of storefronts.
A laundromat with darkened windows.
A closed deli.
A liquor store hidden behind metal security gates.
Everything is quiet.
Everything is empty.
A bitter laugh escapes before you can stop it.
You must look completely insane.
Driving around New York in the middle of the night searching for a man who probably doesn't want to be found.
A man who has spent most of his life running toward danger and away from anyone trying to help him.
A man who would likely be irritated if he knew you were doing this.
Yet you keep driving.
Because stopping feels worse.
Stopping feels like surrender.
And surrender feels too much like abandoning him.
The thought settles heavily in your chest, stirring something deeper than worry.
Your father.
Without warning, your thoughts drift toward him.
Toward this truck.
Toward all the years that came before tonight.
The image arrives with startling clarity.
Your father sitting in this same driver's seat.
His hands wrapped around this same worn steering wheel.
The city lights reflecting across the windshield as he drove home after another long day of work.
Knowing exactly what waited for him when he got there.
The arguments.
The bad days.
The medications that worked until they didn't.
The exhaustion that never seemed to leave.
The disappointment.
The fear.
The uncertainty of never knowing what version of life would be waiting behind the apartment door.
And yet he came home.
Every single time.
Not because it was easy.
Not because he always wanted to.
Not because he believed he could fix everything.
But because leaving felt worse.
Your grip tightens unconsciously.
For years, you were convinced you would become your mother.
It felt inevitable.
The illness.
The instability.
The darkness that eventually consumed her.
You spent so much of your life watching yourself for signs of it, examining every fear and every mistake as though they might be evidence of something waiting beneath the surface.
You expected it.
Prepared for it.
Feared it.
But sitting here now, exhausted and restless as you drive through sleeping streets searching for someone who has broken your heart more than once, a different realization begins to settle over you.
Quietly.
Gradually.
With the weight of something undeniable.
You aren't your mother.
Not tonight.
Tonight, you are your father.
Still driving long after you should have gone home.
Still searching for a solution that may not exist.
Still carrying the impossible hope that maybe one more try will make a difference.
Because somewhere in this city is someone you can't quite save.
Someone you may never be able to save.
And somehow that knowledge hasn't stopped you from trying.
The clock on the dashboard changes again.
Another hour gone.
Outside, the streets have grown even quieter. Traffic has thinned to almost nothing. The city seems suspended in that strange space between night and morning.
You stare through the windshield at the empty road stretching ahead.
Just one more corner.
You swallow against the tightness in your throat.
One more street.
Your headlights sweep across another intersection as you turn.
One more look.
Then I'll go home.
OK part 3<<< Cause I feel like it deserves it's own part.
Summary: Some illusions are harder to abandon than people.
C.W: unhealthy relationships, codependency, emotional dependency, obsessive love, grief, suicidal ideation, references to mental illness, self-destructive behavior, blood/injury, violence, emotional manipulation (unintentional), death anxiety, abandonment fears, yearning
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♰╰♯₊⊹Masterlist♰╰♯₊⊹
Josh expected noise when he stepped back into the apartment.
Something.
Raised voices.
Movement.
The sound of dishes.
Maybe even crying.
Instead—
silence.
Heavy silence.
The kind that makes a home feel abandoned even while the lights are still on.
The plastic CVS bag crinkled softly in Josh’s grip as he slowly stepped inside the apartment again. Bandages. Disinfectant. Gauze. Painkillers. Everything he could think to grab in his rush.
The hallway stretched ahead dimly beneath the amber glow of the apartment lights.
And at the end of it—
the kitchen. Orange light spilled weakly from the doorway.
Josh approached slowly.
Carefully.
Then finally looked inside.
And there you were.
Sitting on the kitchen floor.
Still.
Quiet.
Your back leaned weakly against the cupboard beneath the sink, eyes unfocused like your mind had wandered somewhere far beyond the apartment walls.
You slowly looked up when you noticed him there.
Josh’s eyes immediately dropped to assess the damage.
The kitchen had already been cleaned.
No shattered glass.
No blood.
No signs of chaos at all.
Your foot had already been bandaged too.
Neatly.
Carefully.
Almost professionally.
But despite all that—
you still sat there like the mess never actually ended.
Like some part of you was still surrounded by broken glass.
Josh’s chest tightened painfully at the sight.
“Hey… baby girl.”
His voice softened instinctively as he stepped into the kitchen.
“You alright?”
He lowered himself carefully onto the floor beside you with a tired groan, leaning back against the doorway after setting the plastic bag aside.
You looked at him for a long moment.
Then slowly shook your head.
No.
And Josh understood immediately this had nothing to do with your foot.
“Yeah,” he murmured quietly.
“I figured.”
Silence settled between you both afterward.
Soft.
Heavy.
Josh studied your face beneath the warm kitchen light and saw it clearly then—
that look in your eyes.
Not anger.
Not fear.
Something worse.
Loss.
Like something inside you had been hollowed out and left open.
It made his heart ache because he had seen that look once before.
Years ago.
On someone he loved very much.
“The boy is…” Josh exhaled softly, searching for the words. “Pretty good, actually.”
That earned a quiet laugh from you.
Small.
Broken.
“Does it look like it?” you asked softly.
Josh glanced toward the hallway before—
“Honestly?” he said.
“Yeah.”
Your brows tightened slightly.
“The entire dinner, that boy couldn’t take his eyes off you.”
Josh smiled faintly to himself afterward.
“I don’t even think you noticed half the things he was doing.”
Your expression faltered slightly.
“He kept fixing little things for you.”
Josh motioned vaguely toward down the hall to the living room where tonight’s dinner occurred.
“You kept pushing those parsley pieces around your plate and every time you did, he picked them out for you without interrupting the conversation once.”
That made your breath catch faintly.
Because no—
you hadn’t noticed.
And somehow that hurt worse.
Your gaze dropped toward the floor tiles.
The crack running through one of them suddenly becoming unbearably interesting.
“Dad…” your voice came quieter now.
“Hm?”
“How was it with mom?”
Josh blinked in surprise.
You almost never asked about her.
Not directly.
Not like this.
“What about it?” he asked carefully.
You hesitated.
Long enough that Josh almost thought you wouldn’t answer at all.
Then finally—
“Was she difficult to love?”
The question landed softly. But it still hit him like a punch to the chest.
Josh leaned his head back against the doorway slowly. His eyes drifted across the kitchen.
Across old tiles.
Old cabinets.
Old memories.
For a moment he simply sat there in silence searching for an answer that wouldn’t fail you.
Then finally—
“No,” he said quietly.
“She was difficult to keep.”
That made you finally look at your father properly.
Not just glance at him between conversations or through the blur of your own emotions—
but truly look at him.
And suddenly you became painfully aware of how old he had gotten.
The gray in his thinning hair had nearly taken over completely now, silver strands catching beneath the dim orange kitchen light. His beard had grown unevenly over the years too, rough and scattered with white. The skin beneath his eyes looked darker than you remembered, tired in a way sleep could never really fix anymore.
For a moment, he did not look like your father.
He looked like a man who had spent years surviving loneliness quietly.
The realization made something heavy settle inside your chest.
Guilt perhaps.
Or grief.
Maybe both.
Because all at once you realized how long you had left him alone in this apartment.
This dim little apartment filled with books and newspaper stacks and fading memories.
“Your mother…” Josh finally spoke after a while, his voice quieter now. Softer. “I always knew she was complicated.”
He paused there.
His fingers rubbed slowly against the fabric over his knee, like he was feeling around carefully for the right words before allowing them out.
“Not difficult,” he corrected gently after a moment, almost immediately unhappy with the first word. “I don’t want to use that word”
The kitchen fell quiet again except for the faint buzzing hum of the overhead light. Josh leaned his head back lightly against the doorway behind him.
“Every relationship becomes difficult eventually,” he murmured. “That wasn’t something unique to your mother.”
His eyes wandered somewhere distant then.
Not toward you.
Toward memory.
“She was…” A faint tired smile crossed his face. “Spontaneous. God.”
You saw it then.
For the first time that night, something warm entered his expression instead of exhaustion.
“If she got an idea into her head, that was it. Nothing could stop her.” He let out a quiet breath through his nose almost resembling a laugh. “She had to do it immediately. Had to chase it completely.”
Another pause.
“And if she couldn’t do it perfectly…”
His voice trailed off gently. But he didn’t need to finish the sentence.
You already knew.
You remembered the darkened rooms.
The closed curtains.
Your mother staying in bed for days with hollow eyes fixed at the ceiling while unfinished paintings or abandoned hobbies sat untouched around the apartment like little graves.
You remembered how failure seemed to swallow her whole.
Like if she could not become extraordinary at something immediately, she would collapse inward completely.
“Often,” Josh continued more quietly, “she got frustrated with herself. With life. With the way her own mind worked.”
He looked down at his hands then.
“And during those times…” he admitted carefully, “yes. Loving her could feel hard.”
His voice held no resentment.
That was the painful part.
Only exhaustion.
Only honesty worn smooth with time.
Then slowly—
he looked at you again.
And the expression on his face softened so deeply it almost hurt to witness.
“But what can I say?” he murmured.
“She was the love of my life.”
The words settled heavily inside the kitchen.
Inside you.
The love of my life.
And immediately—
you thought of Dex.
The thought arrived so naturally it frightened you.
Would he become worse with time?
Would the violence grow sharper?
Would the anger become unbearable?
Or maybe—
maybe one day he would simply become empty instead.
Hollowed out by his own mind the same way your mother had been.
You thought about what he said.
About borrowed time.
About his body failing him eventually.
About death with such strange calmness that it almost sounded rehearsed.
And suddenly a horrible thought crossed your mind.
When that borrowed time finally ran out like he said—
would Dex end it himself?
Or would he throw himself into enough danger until somebody else finally did it for him?
The idea made your stomach twist painfully.
“Dad…” Your voice sounded smaller now.
Josh hummed softly in response.
You stared down at your bandaged foot before finally asking,
“Did you ever think about leaving mom?”
The question landed softly between you both. But your father still went completely still afterward.
Not dramatically.
Not enough for someone else to notice.
But you noticed.
Because you were his daughter.
His eyes lowered slowly toward the linoleum floor.
Toward the cracks running through it.
And for the first time that night, he looked almost… ashamed.
“I…” He cleared his throat quietly. “I would never leave you or your mother.”
A pause.
“Especially when she was…unwell.”
But something about the way he said it made your chest tighten.
The hesitation.
The careful wording.
The discomfort hidden underneath gentleness.
And suddenly—
you knew.
Maybe he had thought about leaving once.
Maybe several times.
Maybe there were nights he sat awake wondering how much more both of them could survive.
“It’s alright, dad,” you said softly before he could bury himself beneath the lie completely.
“Really.”
You gave him a weak smile.
“I’m not a little girl anymore.”
Josh stayed quiet.
Your fingers tightened slightly around the fabric of your skirt.
“Whatever you went through…” you admitted carefully, “I’ve probably gone through it as well.”
A soft laugh escaped you afterward.
Thin.
Tired.
The kind of laugh people make when the truth hurts too much to say plainly.
The tension in Josh’s shoulders eased slightly after that.
Like your permission allowed him to finally stop pretending for a moment.
Slowly he raised one knee upward, resting his elbows against it while staring absently toward the dim kitchen light.
Thinking.
Remembering.
Mourning quietly.
Then finally—
he spoke.
"Your mother..." Josh starts, then stops.
His fingers rub together absently. Like he's trying to smooth out a wrinkle that isn't there.
"Claire..." His voice softens. "She got violent sometimes."
The words sound difficult coming out.
Not because they're untrue.
Because saying them aloud feels like a betrayal.
He swallows.
"Not her fault. At least that's what I always told myself."
A small helpless laugh escapes him.
"The doctors were constantly changing medications. Some worked. Some didn't. And when they didn't..."
His gaze drifts toward the floor.
"...she wasn't really herself."
The kitchen grows quieter.
The hum of the refrigerator suddenly feels loud.
"When that happened..." Josh pauses.
For a moment it looks like he might stop talking entirely.
Like he's already said too much.
Then he exhales.
Slowly.
"I used to think about leaving."
Reader stills.
Josh's eyes stay fixed on the floor.
"I don't mean leaving you."
His voice cracks slightly.
"I mean...just leaving."
His fingers tighten around his knee.
"Getting in the car after work and not turning toward home."
A bitter smile pulls at one corner of his mouth.
"Just keep driving."
His gaze goes distant.
Like he's looking through the kitchen wall.
"North. South. East. West. Didn't matter. I never got far enough in the fantasy to figure out where I was going."
Reader's chest tightens.
"I just knew I wanted to keep driving."
Josh's throat works.
"Until the gas ran out."
Silence settles between them.
Heavy.
Old.
"I thought about it more times than I'd ever admit to anyone."
His voice drops lower.
"Every red light."
A pause.
"Every traffic jam."
Another.
"Every day I sat in the parking lot after work trying to gather enough courage to walk back through that door."
Reader watches him carefully.
She has never seen her father like this.
Never seen him stripped down to something this raw.
Josh finally looks up.
His eyes shine under the kitchen light.
And Reader realizes with a start that her father is trying very hard not to cry.
"I hated myself for thinking it."
His voice trembles.
"Because it wasn't just her I'd be leaving."
A small sad smile appears.
"It would've been you too."
Reader's throat tightens immediately.
Josh shakes his head.
"You were just a kid."
His eyes grow distant again.
"And no child should've had to carry what you carried."
The words come out rough.
"I knew that."
His jaw clenches.
"And the worst part was knowing I couldn't fix it."
Reader looks away.
Because she knows that feeling too.
Knows exactly what it feels like to love someone and realize love isn't enough to save them.
"So every day I'd sit there in the car."
Josh laughs softly.
"Thinking maybe this would be the day I keep driving."
His eyes drift toward the doorway.
Toward memories.
"And then I'd come home."
His smile softens.
Warms.
"Because every night there was this little girl waiting for me."
Reader's eyes sting immediately.
"Dad..."
"You remember?"
Josh chuckles.
"You'd sit on those apartment stairs holding that ugly little teddy bear."
Reader lets out a watery laugh.
"It wasn't ugly."
"It absolutely was."
His smile widens.
"The thing looked like it'd survived a war."
"It survived me."
"Exactly."
That earns a genuine laugh from both of them.
Small.
Brief.
But real.
Josh's eyes soften.
"And every time I'd climb those stairs..."
His voice grows quieter.
"...you'd already be waiting."
Reader remembers.
God.
She remembers.
The darkness outside the windows.
The smell of cigarettes where dinner should be.
The sound of keys rattling.
The heavy footsteps climbing the stairwell.
And her father's face.
Always exhausted.
Always carrying something invisible on his shoulders.
Yet the second he saw her—
he smiled.
Every single time.
Like she was the best thing he'd seen all day.
"You'd run over before I even got to the top step."
Josh laughs.
"And suddenly I'd have this little gremlin attached to my leg."
Reader groans.
"Dad."
"It's true."
"You make me sound feral."
"You were feral."
Josh grins.
Then his expression softens again.
"Those were the moments worth coming home for."
The smile remains.
But something sad settles behind it.
"Not because they fixed anything."
His gaze lowers.
"They didn't."
A beat.
"Your mother was still sick."
Another.
"The fights were still there."
Another.
"The bad days were still waiting."
Josh looks back at Reader.
"But for a few minutes..."
His voice becomes almost a whisper.
"...I remembered why I stayed."
Silence follows.
Not uncomfortable.
Not heavy.
Just thoughtful.
Reader stares at the floor.
Thinking about escape.
About staying.
About all the people who spend years trapped inside lives they desperately want to run from.
And she wonders—
is staying courage?
Or is it fear?
Is running weakness?
Or simply honesty?
Because every creature on earth wants to flee when cornered.
Wants to survive.
Wants relief.
Yet somehow people stay.
For children.
For spouses.
For promises.
For love.
And sometimes Reader isn't sure whether that's humanity at its finest—
or its most tragic flaw.
Josh sits quietly for a moment.
Then he glances toward you.
"You know..."
He rubs his beard.
"I used to think loving someone meant never wanting to leave."
You look up.
"But that's not true."
His voice is calm.
"Sometimes the people we love the most make us want to run the fastest."
The kitchen falls silent again.
Josh stares toward the living room.
"Your mother wasn't easy."
A sad smile.
"God knows I wasn't easy either."
He chuckles softly.
"But I think the mistake I made for years was believing love was enough."
You frown.
"What do you mean?"
Josh thinks for a moment.
Then says—
"Love isn't what keeps a relationship alive."
That catches your attention immediately.
"Choice."
You blink.
"Every day."
He taps the floor lightly.
"Every day you wake up and decide whether this person makes your life bigger or smaller."
A pause.
"Whether they make you more yourself."
Another pause.
"Or less."
The thought settles between you and your father.
Making your life bigger.
Or smaller.
You stare at the kitchen floor.
At the faded linoleum that has seen decades of footsteps pass over it.
At the worn seams where the pattern has almost disappeared entirely.
At the faint smear of dried blood near your bandaged foot.
The kitchen feels unusually quiet now.
The refrigerator hums softly somewhere behind you.
A pipe groans in the wall.
Outside the apartment, somebody laughs in the hallway before the sound fades away.
Life continues.
Normal.
Unbothered.
And yet your entire world feels as though it has shifted slightly off-center.
Your father's words keep circling.
Bigger.
Or smaller.
You turn the thought over in your head.
Examining it from every angle.
Trying to fit yourself inside it.
And the more you do—
the less certain you become.
Because had your life ever been big?
The question arrives so suddenly it almost startles you.
You think about Dex first.
Of course you do.
The letters.
The waiting.
The years.
The fear.
The longing.
The constant shadow of him hanging over every decision you've made since Florida.
But then—
your thoughts drift further back.
Further than Dex.
Further than the psych ward.
Further than the letters.
Back before everything became so complicated.
Back when you were 19.
Back when you thought adulthood would arrive one day and magically explain who you were supposed to become.
The memory unfolds slowly.
A cramped office floor.
Rows of cubicles.
Fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.
The stale smell of burnt coffee and printer ink.
Phones ringing.
Always ringing.
You remember sitting there for hours.
Listening.
Listening.
Listening.
Strangers crying into the phone.
Strangers begging for reasons to stay alive.
Strangers whose names you would forget five minutes after hanging up.
You remember the exhaustion.
The numbness.
The strange guilt that came from becoming accustomed to suffering.
And yet—
you stayed.
Year after year.
The same desk.
The same cubicle.
The same walls.
Never asking for more.
Never trying to move higher.
Never trying to leave.
At the time, you told yourself it was because you wanted to help people.
Because the work mattered.
Because somebody had to answer those calls.
And part of that was true.
It was.
But now, sitting on your father's kitchen floor, you wonder if that was the whole truth.
Or if there had been another reason.
A quieter one.
An uglier one.
Because staying had always been easier.
No risks.
No expectations.
No possibility of failure.
Your gaze drifts toward the cabinets.
Toward the faded paint chipped around the handles.
You suddenly remember standing in front of a blank canvas when you were younger.
Trying to paint.
Trying to be like your mother.
God.
How badly you wanted to be like her.
To understand how she could create entire worlds from nothing.
You remember the smell of paint.
The roughness of the canvas.
The way the white surface seemed to stretch endlessly before you.
And every single time—
you froze.
Not because you lacked ideas.
But because there were too many.
Infinite possibilities.
Infinite directions.
Infinite chances to get it wrong.
So you never painted much at all.
Then came writing.
Your father.
His notebooks.
His articles scattered around the apartment.
The way words seemed to flow from him so naturally.
You wanted that too.
Wanted to be brave enough to put something of yourself onto a page.
But every article came back with the same criticism.
You can practically hear the teacher's voice now.
"Lacks boldness."
At the time you hated hearing it.
Thought it was unfair.
What did that even mean?
How can writing be bold?
Now you think you finally understand.
It wasn't your writing they were talking about.
It was you.
You were always standing near the edge of things.
Never stepping fully into them.
Always hesitating.
Always waiting.
Waiting until you were certain.
Waiting until you felt ready.
Waiting until someone gave you permission.
And suddenly—
a painful thought slips into your mind.
Maybe Dex didn't make your life smaller.
Maybe your life had always been small.
The realization lands heavily.
Not because it's cruel.
Because it feels true.
You feel your throat tighten.
Your eyes sting unexpectedly.
Because for years—
you blamed Dex for everything.
The fear.
The waiting.
The stagnation.
And he deserved some of that blame.
Maybe even most of it.
But not all of it.
Not all.
Some of it belonged to you.
To every opportunity you never took.
Every risk you never made.
Every door you were too frightened to open.
The realization doesn't make you feel liberated.
It makes you feel tired.
Tired in the way people feel when they finally stop lying to themselves.
"Dad."
The word leaves your mouth quietly.
Almost accidentally.
Across from you, Josh blinks.
Pulled from whatever memory he had been lost inside.
You watch him quickly wipe at his eyes.
Trying to compose himself.
Trying to be your father again instead of a grieving husband.
"Yes, pumpkin?"
The nickname hits harder than it usually does.
Maybe because suddenly—
he looks old.
Not weak.
Not frail.
Just old.
His hair has almost completely surrendered to gray.
The lines around his eyes have deepened.
His shoulders don't sit as straight as they used to.
And for the first time, you realize how many years the two of you have lost.
Not to death.
Not to tragedy.
Just to life.
You smile softly.
A small thing.
Fragile.
"Can we watch Christmas movies together?"
The question seems to surprise him.
His eyebrows lift.
"Christmas movies?"
You let out a small laugh.
"It's stupid, I know."
"It's June."
"I know."
A pause.
You look down at your bandaged foot.
Then back at him.
"I just miss them."
The words come out smaller than you intended.
But they're honest.
And somehow that's enough.
Your father's face softens immediately.
The way it always has.
The way it did when you scraped your knees.
When you failed tests.
When you cried over things that seemed enormous at sixteen.
The same look.
The same warmth.
Still there after all these years.
"Of course."
His smile is gentle.
Steady.
Safe.
"Anything my little girl wants."
And for the first time since walking into this apartment—
the ache in your chest eases.
Not completely.
Not even close.
But enough.
Enough to breathe.
Enough to remember what home feels like.
The night air clings warm against Dex’s skin.
New York never fully cools after sunset—not in summer. It stays humid, heavy, alive. Even in quieter streets like this one, where traffic noise fades into distant murmurs and flickering streetlights replace the chaos of the main avenues.
Dex stands across the street.
Still.
Half-shadowed against a brick wall.
Perfect line of sight to the apartment window.
To her father’s living room.
He doesn’t move even after Josh disappears inside the building.
Even after enough time has passed that he should already be upstairs.
Even after logic tells him there is nothing left to observe.
Still, Dex watches.
His gaze stays fixed on the dim orange glow behind the window.
Waiting.
Checking.
Needing to make sure.
Needing to confirm she is alright.
That she didn’t break under it.
That she isn’t sitting somewhere alone with that look in her eyes again—the one that comes after she says something she can’t take back.
Dex understands that pattern, even if he doesn’t fully understand the cause.
Y/N always feels it after.
Whatever it is.
A kind of guilt that lingers too long, too deep. One that curls inward until it forces her to fix something—anything—to make it right again.
He has never understood why she carries it so heavily.
Maybe that is what good people do.
He remembers hearing that once—somewhere, long ago.
Good people feel too much.
They absorb things others let pass through them. They take responsibility for what was never theirs.
A good heart, then.
That must be it.
Y/N is good.
Dex’s gaze softens slightly as he watches the window.
His angel.
His star.
The only thing in a world like this that feels clean.
Pure.
Unbroken.
Even when she is angry.
Even when she shouts.
Even when she looks at him like she might hate him for anything he does.
It never changes what she is to him.
Because those same hands that push him away are the hands that once held him so gently.
Those same eyes that cut through him are the eyes that once looked at him like he was something worth loving.
And that mouth—
that voice—
that softness—
it still exists underneath everything else.
Dex’s jaw tightens slightly.
He knows what he is.
He doesn’t forget.
Blood sticks too deeply to wash off easily.
He has no right to stand near her like this.
No right to linger in her orbit and call it love.
That’s why it has to be corrected.
Balanced.
Cleaned.
Made right.
A single good action.
Something to offset the weight of everything else.
His eyes remain on the window.
And then—
movement.
A shift in warm light.
A silhouette.
Y/N appears.
Limping slightly.
Smiling.
Talking to her father like nothing is wrong.
Like the world hasn’t cracked open between them just hours ago.
And then she laughs.
Light.
Brief.
Real.
The sound is too distant to hear, but Dex doesn’t need to hear it.
He knows it.
His expression softens without permission.
Something almost relieved passes through him.
She’s okay.
That’s all that matters.
That she’s okay.
That she’s still whole.
Still there.
Still herself.
Only then does Dex finally push off the wall.
Turning away from the window.
His steps are slow as he begins walking back into the night.
Because now he knows what he has to do.
Something good.
Something clean.
Something that will make him worthy again—at least for a moment.
One act to balance the scales.
One thing that proves he can still be what she deserves.
So that when he returns to her—
he won’t feel like something stained standing in front of something sacred.
It's been a while since you've seen Dex.
Three days.
At least you think it's been three days.
The number keeps changing every time you try to count it.
The last few days have blurred together into a strange routine of moving back and forth between your apartment and your father's.
Sleeping in one place.
Waking up in another.
Helping your dad sort through old boxes one afternoon.
And most importantly—
You haven't called Dex.
Partly out of pride. Partly because you genuinely have no idea what you're supposed to say.
What is there to say after a conversation like that?
Hello, Benjamin.
I would like to formally apologize for informing you that I spent seven years hoping you would die in a psychiatric institution.
You grimace.
God.
Even in your head it sounds insane.
Cruel, too.
And the worst part?
You aren't even sure it was entirely untrue.
Still.
That isn't what's bothering you. The thing bothering you is that Dex hasn't called.
Not once.
No texts.
No emails.
No unexpected appearance outside your building.
Nothing.
Silence.
Cold.
Complete silence.
And that should be reassuring.
Any normal person would probably consider it healthy.
Space.
Distance.
Time to cool off.
The problem is that Dex has never been particularly interested in any of those things.
Space has been practically nonexistent since the moment he crashed back into your life.
The man treats personal boundaries the same way most people treat speed limits.
More suggestion than rule.
Which means the silence feels wrong. Wrong enough that it eventually drives you here.
To him.
Because if Dex isn't coming to you—
then you're going to him.
The apartment building looks exactly the same. Leaning slightly to one side as though it has finally grown tired of holding itself upright.
You pause across the street for a moment. Staring at it.
New York's own version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Just significantly uglier. And probably one bad winter away from collapsing entirely.
The front entrance buzzes weakly as you step inside. Immediately you're greeted by cracked marble flooring that looks older than you are.
The building smells faintly of dust. Old pipes. And somebody's questionable attempt at cooking cabbage.
No security desk.
No cameras.
No doorman.
Nothing standing between the city and whatever happens inside these walls.
You try not to think about how concerning that is considering who lives on the 5th floor.
The stairwell isn't any better. The steps are steep enough to qualify as a climbing exercise. The wooden handrail rattles whenever you touch it.
At one point it shifts beneath your palm and you immediately decide not to trust it with your life.
Or even your balance.
By the second flight your leg is already aching. Which makes you remember something.
The last time you came here—
you never actually climbed these stairs.
Of course.
Dex carried you.
All the way upstairs.
At the time he'd claimed it was compensation for losing your luggage while the two of you were running from AVTF officers.
A terrible apology, really. Considering most of your belongings had been inside.
Photos.
Clothes.
Small gifts.
Little pieces of people you cared about. Things Elton and Marisa had given you over the years.
Gone.
Lost somewhere in the chaos.
You remember standing in this very stairwell afterward.
Trying not to care.
Trying not to think about what it meant.
Because life has a funny way of leaving messages lying around.
Symbols.
Warnings.
Metaphors.
Most people either fail to notice them. Or notice them and deliberately look away.
Sometimes because they're blind to it. Sometimes because the truth is simply inconvenient.
Eventually you reach the 5th floor.
Slightly out of breath.
Slightly sweaty.
And far more nervous than you'd like to admit.
Dex's apartment door stands exactly where you left it.
Plain.
Unremarkable.
Closed.
You stare at it.
Right.
Now comes the difficult part.
You need an excuse. A reasonable excuse.
Something that doesn't immediately reveal that you came all the way here because you were worried.
Your hair clip. That could work.
You could say you forgot your hair clip.
Simple.
Believable.
From there you could naturally steer the conversation somewhere else.
Ease into it.
Ask how he's doing.
Pretend this wasn't the entire reason you came.
Your hand starts lifting toward the door.
And then—
"Are you Tony's girlfriend?"
The voice startles you badly enough that you nearly jump.
You turn around.
The apartment door beside Dex's has opened at some point without you noticing.
An elderly woman stands in the doorway.
Small.
Sharp-eyed.
The kind of woman who looks like she has spent the last twenty years monitoring every resident on this floor through sheer force of curiosity.
A gray cat slips past her ankles before she can stop it.
To your surprise, it immediately trots toward you.
Its tail lifts high in the air.
Friendly.
Confident.
As though the two of you have met before.
"Uh—"
Before you can react, the cat is already weaving around your legs.
Rubbing itself against your ankles.
Purring loudly.
You stare down at it.
Confused.
You definitely don't remember meeting this cat.
Yet it behaves like you're a familiar visitor.
Like it already knows your scent.
The old woman doesn't seem interested in the cat's social life.
Her eyes remain fixed firmly on you.
Studying.
Assessing.
Judging.
"Who are you?" she asks.
The words are thick with a heavy Albanian accent.
"What business do you have with the man in that apartment?"
The question isn't friendly.
It's suspicious.
The sort of suspicion that comes from years of watching people come and go.
You shift awkwardly.
"Um..."
The cat bumps its head against your shin.
You almost lose your train of thought.
"I'm Y/N."
The woman continues staring.
You clear your throat.
"I'm his girlfriend."
The word feels strange coming out of your mouth.
Girlfriend.
Not hostage.
Not victim.
Not pen pal.
Not whatever impossible thing the two of you actually are.
Just girlfriend.
The woman looks you up and down slowly.
Taking in everything.
Your clothes.
Your face.
The nervous way you're standing.
Then she mutters something under her breath.
"Vajzë e gjorë."
The phrase means nothing to you.
But the pity in her voice does.
"Excuse me?"
The woman waves a hand dismissively.
As if translating would be a waste of both your time.
"Just take your things and leave."
Your stomach tightens.
"What?"
"He is not here anymore."
The old woman shifts the cat higher in her arms.
The animal immediately begins purring against her shoulder.
"He won't come back."
For a moment, neither of you says anything.
The hallway suddenly feels much warmer.
Much smaller.
You blink.
Trying to process what she just said.
"What do you mean?"
The woman shrugs.
A simple movement.
As though the answer should be obvious.
"Your man is criminal."
The words land heavily.
Matter-of-fact.
Not angry.
Not judgmental.
Just factual.
Like saying the sky is blue.
Or winter is cold.
"Better stay away from him."
And before you can ask anything else—
the woman retreats into her apartment.
The door closes.
Leaving you alone in the hallway.
Silence settles immediately afterward.
The cat included.
Gone.
Just like that.
You remain standing there.
Staring at the closed door.
Your thoughts struggle to catch up.
He won't come back.
The words echo unpleasantly in your head.
Your man is criminal.
Well.
You already knew that.
Unfortunately.
The list of crimes Benjamin Poindexter has committed is probably long enough to qualify as its own library section.
So that can't be what she means.
Which means—
A cold feeling begins spreading slowly through your chest.
No.
No, she must mean something else.
Right?
Your gaze drifts back toward Dex's apartment door.
Suddenly noticing something you should have noticed immediately.
The door isn't fully closed.
It's slightly ajar.
Open by perhaps an inch.
Your pulse stumbles.
Slowly—
carefully—
you push the door open.
The hinges groan softly.
And the moment you step inside—
you realize something is wrong.
Very wrong.
The apartment is a mess.
Not messy.
Not lived-in.
Not the kind of clutter that gathers naturally over time.
A mess.
Violent.
Sudden.
Wrong.
The armchair lies overturned on its side.
The television has been knocked onto the floor, its screen shattered inward around a single coin lodged deep in the glass.
A coin.
Reader's stomach immediately twists.
Of course.
Who else's apartment would have a coin embedded in a television?
Books are scattered everywhere.
Broken picture frames litter the floor.
Glass crunches softly beneath her shoes as she steps inside.
The shelves have been stripped bare, their contents thrown carelessly across the room as though somebody had searched the apartment in a hurry.
Or fought inside it.
The sight leaves Reader frozen in the doorway.
Her jaw parts slightly.
What the hell happened?
She was just here.
Three days.
Three days ago she had been lying naked in this apartment complaining about the summer heat.
Three days ago Dex had left to buy her popsicles.
Three days ago this place had felt strangely domestic despite the cracked windows and yellow walls.
And now—
now it looks like a crime scene.
Her heart begins pounding.
Hard.
Too hard.
Part 2 <<<
P.S: I'm sorry if reader and her dad's conversation is a bit long, it's mostly self indulgent in my part with my daddy issues.
Will oc!reader’s father ever find out who dex really is????👀👀👀
Yes, of course. Reader's father will eventually find out that Dex is Bullseye, and you'll see why in a future chapter.
However, Josh (reader's father name) isn't going to force Reader to stop seeing him.
Reader is a grown woman, and Josh recognizes that. He's the type of person who believes that love is ultimately a choice adults make for themselves. Because of that, he isn't going to insert himself between Reader and Dex. But as her father? He is absolutely worried about her.
The thing is, Josh doesn't doubt that Dex loves Reader. That's not what concerns him. What concerns him is how unhealthy their relationship appears to be.
Even from that one dinner, he can tell there are parts of their relationship that he isn't seeing. The way Reader seems nervous the entire evening, almost like she's afraid Dex might say the wrong thing. The incident in the kitchen that doesn't quite feel like an accident. Little things that suggest whatever exists between them goes far beyond the scope of a normal relationship with normal arguments.
And that's what worries him.
Josh would have a lot of questions, but not because he's looking for an explanation or justification. What he really wants to know is what Reader expects from this relationship. What future does she see in it? What is she hoping to gain from staying?
Because Josh has been in her position before.
He knows what it's like to love someone who is unstable. He knows what it's like to endure years of hardship, emotional turmoil, and unhealthy patterns. He didn't stay with his wife because he believed his love would magically fix all that He stayed because he chose to. Because he was attached to her. Because leaving hurt more than staying.
And that's exactly why he's afraid Reader might be making the same choice.
So yes, he would warn her. He would be honest about the reality of what a relationship like that can become. He would tell her things she may not want to hear.
But ultimately, the decision would still be hers.
Whether Reader chooses to stay with Dex or walk away from him, Josh will remain by her side. Not necessarily because he agrees with her choices, but because she's his daughter.
And for Josh, that's reason enough.
♰╰♯₊⊹Masterlist♰╰♯₊⊹ <<< of the series
PS: I actually have very major daddy issues and if you look at alot of my fanfic series. All the father figures in the stories are all competent, loving, caring fathers while the mother figures are absent. Yea....that speaks a lot about me.
Ok so I just read some drama in the Bullseye fandom. Like, what the actual hell. I only found out about it because of TikTok. I don't use Twitter, so this is so bizarre to me. I think most of you guys probably know about this; therefore, I won't talk about the overall situation. All the situations mentioned during the drama are just as equally important as the one I am raising here, but as a fanfic writer, I feel like this is something that needed to be said in the fanfic community.
Guys don't hate on fanfic writers. Any fanfic writers.
I understand as a reader, you might have different tastes in literature. Hell, I can't say I myself enjoy all types of fanfics either. I have talked about my dislikes for reading fanfics that cause their characters to stray from the original source material. And that's my take as a reader. But as a writer…
Please understand we humans grow and learn over time. Just because you view a fanfic as ill-written or you dislike a certain genre of fanfics. Please don't hate on the writers. I believe every fanfic writer, at some level, adores their work as any artist would adore their art. They put their time and effort into such creations, and it's not right for us as humans to judge something another human adores.
Also, just because you are a fanfic writer doesn't give you the right to judge other fanfic writers' work because frankly, we are all learning. We are all developing our writing skills at our own pace. Just because you have a platform and a large following doesn't give you the right to act with no digital etiquette.
Personally, fanfic writing has such a meaningful place in my heart; I find it to be an art where I can explore my favorite characters and connect with people who like these said characters at the same time. I believe it is the same for most people; maybe it could even be more meaningful for them.
So my take is, yes, I understand in this day and age it's so easy to hate on the internet since all we do is type a few words, but understand there's a human who will be viewing those words. It's a person who will feel those words behind the screen.
So take a pause, read the words you have written to yourself as if they were being said to you; feel it before you click send. Because to hate is easier than to be kind. Especially with the state of the world we all are going through. It would be best if everyone could learn to be kinder. Thank you.
@rheleea @not-the-teen-witch @miscrying @gojoswaterbottle @sgreer123 @bloomsberryfairy@chloeforde@valerinnwrld
Ps: Idk if i should put a taglist in this type of posts but I just want everyone to be informed.
Summary: They kept performing love like it was something gentle, something survivable. But illusions always crack under pressure, especially when built on violence and absence. In the end, what’s left behind isn’t softness—it’s truth, and truth is never pretty.
after the violence, the fear, the bodies, the years—
seeing Dex look hurt still destroys you instantly.
It’s unfair.
God, it’s so unfair.
You swallow hard.
“Yes,” you whisper finally.
The word feels irreversible the second it leaves your mouth.
Like the first crack through porcelain.
And maybe this is it.
Maybe this is the moment the fragile little fantasy you both built finally collapses under its own weight.
“Yes,” you repeat shakily. “I wanted you to leave me alone.”
Dex just stares at you.
Breathing shallow now.
You force yourself to continue anyway before fear can stop you.
“Matter of fact…” Your voice trembles violently. “I always thought one day I’d get a letter.”
Your eyes burn.
“A letter telling me you died in that psych ward and…” You inhale sharply. “And I would finally be free.”
The confession hangs between you.
Ugly.
Raw.
Dex looks almost disoriented hearing it.
Like his brain physically cannot place the words together correctly.
“You wanted to be free,” he repeats softly.
Not even as a question.
More like he’s testing the shape of the sentence in his mouth.
Trying to understand how it could possibly exist.
“Yes.”
Your voice cracks harder now.
“You don’t understand how suffocating those seven years were.”
Tears finally spill down your face despite how hard you fight them.
“My body was in Florida but my mind never left you.”
That finally gets something out of him.
His eyes lift quickly back to yours.
Searching.
Desperate almost.
Because there’s no anger in your face right now.
Only exhaustion.
Only truth.
“Every time I wanted something good for myself…” your voice shakes, “every time I thought about moving on, or being happy, or having a normal life—”
Your chest tightens so badly the words nearly stop there.
“I thought of you.”
Dex’s breathing falters.
“I thought about how one day you’d come back and see me happy without you.” You laugh once weakly through tears. “And you’d destroy it.”
The kitchen blurs slightly around the edges now.
You can barely feel your fingers anymore.
“For seven years,” you whisper, “I lived in your shadow.”
The words spill faster after that.
Like once the wound opens, it can’t close again.
“I was too scared to step outside of it because some part of me always believed you’d find me eventually.”
Your voice turns smaller.
More fragile.
“And now I’m almost forty.”
That one hurts to say aloud.
You can feel it.
“No husband. No child of my own. No stable life.” Your face twists slightly as another tear slips free. “Because I’ve spent almost a decade being haunted by you.”
Silence crashes over the kitchen again afterward.
You stand there shaking.
Bleeding onto the floor.
Feeling like you finally ripped open every ugly thing you kept buried for years.
And Dex—
You don’t know what you expect from him.
Part of you braces automatically for violence.
For the sudden sharp crash of plates against walls.
For silverware embedding itself into cabinets.
For him to explode the way storms do after holding too much pressure for too long.
Because that’s what men like Dex do when cornered.
They destroy things.
But instead—
he just stands there.
Perfectly still.
Then—
“Well…”
The word leaves Dex so quietly you almost miss it beneath the buzzing kitchen light.
For a second he says nothing else.
Just stands there across from you while blood slowly gathers beneath your foot in thin dark streaks against the white linoleum.
Then finally—
“Since we’re being honest.”
His gaze lifts.
And something about it makes your stomach tighten instantly.
Not anger.
Not cruelty.
Something calmer.
Worse.
Like a storm that has already decided where it’s going to land.
“If we’re going to talk about the grievances of our youth,” he says softly, “then I’ll tell you mine too.”
You already know.
Before he even continues, you already know exactly where this is heading.
Dex inhales sharply through his nose.
“I stayed in that place for seven years.”
The words come out flat.
Controlled.
Too controlled.
His eyes stay fixed on yours.
“Not you. Me.”
A beat.
“You know what that place does to people?”
A quiet laugh leaves him then.
Dry.
Humorless.
“They wake you up before sunrise. Pills. Therapy. More pills. Same rooms. Same walls. Same people staring at you like they’re waiting for you to snap.”
His jaw tightens slightly.
“And if you don’t cooperate…”
He shrugs once.
Small.
Detached.
“They hold you down.”
Your throat tightens immediately.
Dex keeps going anyway.
“Four people usually. Sometimes more.”
His gaze flicks briefly toward the floor.
“I hated the injections.”
That sentence comes quieter.
More honest than the others.
“Couldn’t think straight after. Hands shaking all the time. Could barely hold a spoon some days.”
A pause.
Then his eyes lift back to yours.
“And you knew that.”
The words don’t come out angry.
That’s the worst part.
They come out hurt.
“I wrote to you every week.”
Another pause.
“And you still hoped I stayed there.”
The silence afterward feels unbearable.
The kitchen suddenly feels too small.
Too hot.
You can hear your own heartbeat now.
Dex looks away first.
“It’s fine,” he mutters after a moment. “Really.”
Another quiet laugh leaves him.
“It’s fair.”
The words sound almost thoughtful now. Like he’s sorting through the wreckage of the two of you in real time.
“I get it.”
His shoulders rise slightly before falling again.
“I can’t give you what you want.”
His gaze remains lowered as he speaks.
“I can’t promise you a future. Or a husband. Or kids.”
A faint smile touches his mouth then, though it holds absolutely no warmth.
“Can’t give you a nice little house with a lawn and some stupid dog sleeping on the porch.”
Something inside your chest twists painfully.
Because he says it like he’s describing another species entirely.
Not himself.
Never himself.
“And the funny thing is…”
Dex lets out another soft breath of laughter.
This time almost at his own expense.
“I can’t even find it in me to care that I can’t give you those things.”
That hurts more than if he had lied.
More than if he had pretended.
Because this—
this is honest.
Terribly honest.
He isn’t trying to manipulate you right now.
He truly means it.
And somehow that makes it worse.
You suddenly don’t know what to say.
Because all these years, some small part of you still expected him to eventually become someone easier to survive beside.
Someone softer.
Someone willing to bend.
But now, standing in your father’s kitchen with your blood on the floor between you—
you finally understand.
This is him bending.
This is the soft version.
Slowly, Dex steps forward and lowers himself onto one knee in front of you.
The movement feels almost reverent.
His hands slide carefully around your injured foot before lifting it onto his thigh.
He doesn’t care about the blood immediately staining his jeans.
Doesn’t even look at it.
“You may have wished I died in that place,” he says quietly.
“And I may never care enough about what you feel to change.”
His fingers trace gently along your ankle.
Following the streaks of drying blood until he reaches the source.
The moment his fingers press against the wound, pain shoots sharply through you.
A broken gasp leaves your throat.
Your hand grabs his shoulder immediately.
Hard.
Almost hateful.
Dex looks up at you through his lashes the entire time.
Steady.
Unmoving.
“We could hate each other for that,” he murmurs.
“Probably for the rest of our lives.”
Then carefully—
so carefully—
his fingers pinch around something buried beneath your skin.
You barely even realize there’s glass lodged inside you until he begins pulling it free.
Pain flashes white-hot through your ankle.
You inhale sharply.
Your grip tightens harder against him.
And Dex—
Dex barely reacts at all.
His focus stays entirely on you.
The shard finally slips free with a wet streak of blood.
More immediately wells from the wound afterward, running hot over his fingers.
He presses down instinctively to stop it.
Calm.
Gentle.
Completely unbothered by your blood covering his hands.
Then finally—
finally—
he speaks again.
“But where’s the fun in that?”
Your breath catches.
You stare down at him.
At the man kneeling between your legs in your father’s kitchen.
The man who touches you like something precious while simultaneously ruining your life piece by piece.
And suddenly the despair of it all feels unbearable.
Because this is the cruelest part of loving Dex.
Not the violence.
Not the blood.
Not even the fear.
It’s this.
The way he can hold your injured body with such impossible care while still being the very reason you were hurt in the first place.
The way tenderness and destruction live so naturally inside him they no longer know how to exist apart.
You don’t know whose fault this became anymore.
Maybe his.
Maybe yours.
Maybe neither.
Maybe this is simply what happens when two damaged people mistake surviving each other for love long enough that they can no longer tell the difference.
But as Dex looks up at you with blood staining his hands and something horribly devoted burning inside those hazel eyes—
you understand something with terrifying clarity.
He will never let you go.
And somewhere deep down—
beneath the fear, beneath the grief, beneath every instinct telling you to run—
you know you will never leave either.
A.N: If you guys have read Polaris, the part where Dex kneel down and take out the shard of glass out of reader's foot is actually a call back to when Dex uncuff reader's ankle chain back when she was his captive.
In both scenes, reader grip Dex's shoulder for support when Dex works on her foot. Back then she felt hot with confusion and now she felt hot with hate. Same position, same actions but different emotions are felt.
I will forever love this type of repetition. 🌟🌟🌟
Also… I only realized after writing that it doesn’t fully make sense for her dad to not know it was Dex who shot him. I mean, Dex went on trial and everything, and her dad is an article writer sooo… yeah.
But let’s just pretend he doesn’t know, okay? LET’S JUST PRETEND HE DOESN’T KNOW FOR THE SAKE OF THE PLOT PLEASEEEEEEE!
Also, if at any point you feel like Dex in the story starts to stray too far from his canon characteristics, please let me know so I can refine him in future chapters. I really want you guys to feel like you’re actually interacting with Dex, not just an OC version of him.So if anything ever feels off or like he isn’t fully “him,” don’t hesitate to tell me. I genuinely want to keep him as human and consistent as possible for you all
With that being said…love you guys peace ✌️😊
Summary: They kept performing love like it was something gentle, something survivable. But illusions always crack under pressure, especially when built on violence and absence. In the end, what’s left behind isn’t softness—it’s truth, and truth is never pretty.
It had been three whole days since you crossed the threshold of Dex’s apartment.
Three days inside these faded yellow walls that trapped heat like an oven left burning too long. The summer air clung to your skin relentlessly, thick and damp, making every breath feel slow and syrupy. Sweat lingered constantly at the back of your neck, beneath your chest, along your thighs no matter how many times either of you showered.
Not that the showers ever lasted long.
Nothing lasted long before becoming each other again.
There were no locks keeping you here.
No chains.
No barred windows.
Nothing physically stopping you from leaving this tiny apartment whenever you wanted.
In fact, the walls felt so thin you were fairly certain the neighbors could hear nearly everything happening inside.
And over the last three days—
they probably had.
Because the only screams that echoed through the apartment had not been born from fear.
Only pleasure.
Only exhaustion.
Only the dizzying sort of intimacy that came from two people clinging to each other so desperately it stopped resembling affection and became survival instead.
For three days, you and Dex had done little beyond sleep, eat, drink water when one of you remembered, and touch each other endlessly.
Like two starving things finally allowed to feed.
Like separating for too long might cause the illusion holding both of you together to collapse completely.
You lay sprawled naked across the bed now without an ounce of shame left in your body.
The sheets tangled lazily around your legs, twisted beyond recognition after being ruined and kicked apart too many times to bother fixing anymore.
From here, you could see directly into the small kitchen across the apartment.
Cracked tiles.
Old cupboards with peeling paint.
A humming refrigerator that sounded like it might die at any moment.
The apartment itself was tiny. Cheap. Human.
Nothing like Dex’s old place.
No sleek furniture that looked untouched.
No meaningless decorative pieces pretending to make a room feel alive.
No sterile perfection.
This place breathed.
The walls were worn.
The windows cracked slightly near the corners.
The pipes groaned whenever water ran.
And somehow—
it felt infinitely more intimate than anything expensive ever could.
Like this was the first place Dex had ever truly lived instead of merely existed inside.
You rolled lazily onto your side, hugging his pillow against your chest.
The fabric smelled overwhelmingly like him.
Soap.
Sweat.
The faint metallic scent that always seemed stitched permanently into Dex no matter how clean he was.
You pressed your face deeper into it instinctively, breathing him in until something heavy and aching settled warmly inside your chest.
Outside, the afternoon sun poured mercilessly through the open blinds, casting thick golden bars of light across your bare skin.
You didn’t bother covering yourself.
It was too hot for modesty.
Too hot for shame.
And honestly—
if some poor neighbor accidentally glanced through the window and saw you sprawled naked in bed at three in the afternoon, they should understand that no sane person could tolerate clothing in heat like this.
Especially not inside their own home.
Especially not after the kind of past three days you’d had.
The sudden sound of keys shifting near the front door pulled you from your haze.
You lifted yourself slightly on your elbows, sluggish from the heat.
The lock clicked.
Then Dex stepped inside.
White tank top.
Grey sweatpants pulled on hastily like he’d only worn them because you insisted someone had to leave the apartment for food eventually.
His dark hair looked slightly damp from sweat already despite having only gone outside briefly.
“Sorry, doll,” he said while shutting the door behind him. “Could only find strawberry and pineapple popsicles. No lime.”
You smiled faintly.
“It’s alright,” you murmured lazily. “I’ll survive with pineapple.”
But Dex didn’t answer immediately. His hand remained loosely around the plastic grocery bag.
And for a moment—
he simply stared.
Like the sight in front of him had caught him off guard despite having spent the last three days worshipping it.
You sitting there half tangled in wrinkled sheets.
Sunlight pouring over your bare skin in molten gold.
Your hair completely ruined from sleep and sweat and his hands constantly in it.
Your legs shifting slowly beneath the sheets.
Relaxed.
Comfortable.
His.
The expression crossing Dex’s face wasn’t lust.
Not entirely.
It looked stranger than that.
Almost uncertain.
Almost uneasy.
Your brows pulled together slightly.
That was new.
Because over the past three days, Dex had wanted nothing except closeness. Skin against skin constantly. Arms wrapped around you even while sleeping like he feared waking up to emptiness again.
So why did he suddenly look—
hesitant?
“Dex?”
Your voice comes out light. Almost playful.
You assume he’s reacting to finding you still naked in bed.
You lift one hand lazily toward him in invitation, fingers curling slightly in a silent come here.
And that—
that finally makes him move.
Dex steps toward the bed slowly.
Each footstep heavy against the hardwood floor.
Not hesitant exactly.
Careful.
Like he’s approaching something fragile enough to disappear if he moves too fast.
His eyes stay fixed entirely on you.
Too fixed.
Studying you with an intensity that makes warmth crawl slowly beneath your skin.
Like he still hasn’t fully convinced himself you’re truly here.
You frown faintly.
Confused by the strange tension in him.
Then your hand reaches out instinctively toward his side the second he gets close enough.
Your fingertips brush against the muscle beneath his thin white tank top.
Warm skin.
Slightly damp from the heat outside.
The contact is absentminded more than anything else.
A quiet attempt to soothe whatever heaviness he carried back inside with him.
And immediately—
Dex exhales.
A real breath.
Like he’d been holding it since the moment he stepped outside the apartment.
You watch the relief hit him all at once.
It softens his face instantly.
His shoulders loosen.
Something desperate in his eyes settles the second your hand touches him.
Then suddenly—
he kneels.
Straight onto the hardwood floor between your legs.
The movement is so immediate it catches you off guard.
Dex looks up at you from there with something frighteningly close to reverence in his expression. Like devotion sits so naturally inside him now he no longer knows how to hide it.
And before you can even process it fully, his hands are already reaching for you.
Large palms sliding carefully over your thighs.
Pulling you closer to the edge of the bed.
You let him.
Of course you do.
Dex lowers his head against your bare thighs almost immediately afterward, resting there like a man finally returning somewhere safe after wandering too long.
Then he kisses you.
Softly.
Aimlessly.
Little lingering kisses pressed wherever he can reach.
Along your thigh.
The inside of your knee.
The warmth of his mouth against your overheated skin makes you let out a quiet laugh despite yourself.
Not cruel.
Never cruel.
Just—
adorably needy.
He had only been gone less than an hour.
And already he was acting like deprivation might kill him.
Dex continues upward slowly, lips dragging higher along your thigh before your legs instinctively press together slightly.
Stopping him.
“Not now,” you whisper softly.
No explanation follows.
You don’t need one.
Dex stills immediately.
Not upset.
Not frustrated.
He simply accepts it in that quiet devastating way he accepts almost everything from you now.
Like any piece of affection is enough.
Like he’ll take whatever scraps you offer and thank you for them.
So instead he stays there kneeling between your legs on the floor like some exhausted sinner at prayer while you run your fingers slowly through his damp hair.
The strands cling slightly to your fingers from sweat.
You comb through them gently.
Over and over.
Down toward the nape of his neck.
You feel him relaxing beneath your touch almost instantly.
Tiny sighs leaving him every so often.
The tension slowly melting from his shoulders.
And suddenly—
despite the heat,
despite the sweat sticking to both your skin,
despite everything strange and fragile about this little apartment—
it feels almost peaceful.
Like this.
Holding him quietly while sunlight spills across the bed.
Like you’re touching your lover instead of holding something dangerous enough to explode eventually.
Your fingers drift lower absentmindedly.
Then pause.
Scar tissue.
Your breath catches slightly.
Right.
The surgery.
Slowly, your fingertips slip beneath the collar of his tank top, tracing carefully along the raised line running down his spine.
The scar feels worse than you imagined.
Thicker.
Uneven beneath your fingertips.
Real in a way his letters never fully captured.
You remember him mentioning the surgery casually once in writing.
Just a brief mention.
Nothing detailed.
Nothing honest enough.
And suddenly you realize he probably hid most of it from you.
The pain.
The recovery.
Whatever happened to him after everything fell apart.
Your fingers continue tracing gently along the scar.
Dex flinches.
Only slightly.
A sharp involuntary twitch beneath your hand.
But he never stops you.
Never pulls away.
If anything—
his grip tightens faintly around your thigh instead.
Like enduring the discomfort is worth keeping your hands on him.
So you continue softly tracing along the damaged line of his spine.
And Dex shudders beneath you.
“Does it hurt?” you ask quietly.
For a moment, he says nothing.
Just keeps rubbing slow absentminded circles against your thigh with his thumb. Like he needs the reminder that you’re still here while you touch the parts of him nobody else gets to see anymore.
“No,” he murmurs eventually.
Then quieter—
“…not anymore.”
You hum softly.
Not fully believing him.
Your fingers continue moving gently over his back while your other hand strokes through his hair again.
And somehow—
between the heat,
the silence,
the intimacy of touching something broken so carefully—
Dex suddenly feels terribly honest beneath your hands.
“Actually…” he says after a pause.
His voice comes rougher this time.
“Sometimes it still hurts.”
Your fingers still slightly against his spine.
“When it gets cold,” he continues quietly, “I can feel it aching.”
He says it like a confession.
Small.
Human.
And you simply listen.
Not interrupting.
Not fixing.
Just letting him speak.
“Sometimes,” Dex says quietly, voice rough against your skin, “I wake up scared one day I won’t feel my legs anymore.”
His fingers tighten around your thigh unconsciously.
“Like everything I got now…” He swallows hard. “It’s borrowed time. And one day that borrowed time’s gonna run out.”
The words settle heavily between you.
Outside the cracked apartment windows, the city continues breathing in distant sirens and heat-drunk traffic, but inside this tiny room everything suddenly feels terribly still.
Your hand slows in his hair.
Because you understand exactly what he means.
Dex has always felt temporary somehow.
Not just his life—though that too.
But the way he exists.
Like he was never built for permanence.
Like at any moment the world might finally remember he was never meant to survive this long and come violently collecting what it’s owed.
Your fingers drift carefully lower along the scar running beneath his tank top again.
Even now it feels wrong beneath your touch.
Too deep.
Too severe.
The raised line of ruined flesh disappears beneath fabric and down his spine like evidence of something almost fatal.
Something he survived anyway.
Barely.
Dex closes his eyes when your fingertips brush over it again.
Not pulling away.
Never pulling away from you.
“Whenever it starts hurting,” he murmurs after a moment, voice quieter now, “I keep thinking maybe that’s it.”
His thumb rubs slowly against your thigh.
Grounding himself.
Making sure you’re still here.
“That maybe I pushed it too far this time.”
Your chest tightens painfully.
Because he says it so casually.
Like discussing bad weather.
Like this fear has lived inside him long enough to become ordinary.
Then slowly, Dex lifts his head.
His eyes meet yours.
God.
There’s something devastatingly open about him right now.
No performance.
No manipulation.
No sharpness.
Just raw exhausted honesty bleeding out of him in the dim afternoon light.
“I used to pray about it,” he admits softly.
Your breathing falters slightly.
Dex almost smiles at that.
Small.
Fragile.
“I’d pray my time wouldn’t run out before I see you again.”
The confession leaves him looking strangely peaceful afterward.
Like he finally said something he carried too long alone.
The sunlight spilling through the blinds catches across the scar on his cheek, softening him into something almost unbearably human.
And when he looks at you now—
he looks full.
Like a starving man finally allowed to rest.
“I guess,” he says quietly, eyes tracing your face with something dangerously close to worship, “someone finally listened.”
The smile he gives you afterward nearly breaks your heart.
Because it’s not triumphant.
Not arrogant.
It’s the smile of a man who genuinely believes this—
you here beside him in this cheap overheated apartment—
might be the happiest moment he was ever meant to reach.
Your hand rises slowly to his face.
Dex leans into it immediately.
Instinctively.
Like he belongs there.
Your thumb strokes carefully along the scar beneath his eye.
Then over the rough stubble across his jaw.
His eyes flutter slightly at the touch.
And suddenly—
recklessly—
a thought enters your mind.
If this really is borrowed time…
then maybe pretending otherwise is pointless.
Maybe loving someone like Dex means accepting the instability of it all from the start.
The violence.
The fear.
The certainty that none of this was built to last.
But maybe that’s exactly why you want more of it anyway.
More before it disappears.
More before reality catches up.
Your fingers linger against his cheek another second before you finally speak.
“Dex…”
He hums softly against your palm.
You hesitate.
Just briefly.
Then—
“Do you want to meet my father?”
Silence.
Real silence this time.
Dex stops breathing for a moment altogether.
You actually watch it happen.
His entire body stills beneath your touch like the words physically struck him.
Because this—
this means something.
Not sex.
Not obsession.
Not surviving each other.
Something worse.
Something far more intimate.
A future.
And the terrifying part is—
the moment the question leaves your mouth…
you realize you mean it.
The elevator creaks as it rises, slow and uncertain, like it’s thinking twice about carrying them any higher.
You are not alone this time.
Dex stands beside you.
Too normal.
Too quiet.
White T-shirt, red flannel, jeans—so plain it almost feels like a disguise designed by someone who has only ever seen “safe men” in passing.
If there were a wanted poster of him tacked up somewhere in this building, no one would look at him twice in this moment. Not long enough to connect him to anything sharp or violent or irreversible.
You press the fourth-floor button, then turn away quickly, smoothing your hair down in the dull reflection of the rusted gold elevator wall. The mirror is warped just enough to make your face look unfamiliar.
You wonder if your father will notice anything wrong with you.
If he’ll see it.
If he’ll ask questions you don’t know how to answer without breaking something open.
Your thoughts snag on Dex.
On the fact that you are bringing him here.
On the fact that he shot your father’s shoulder.
That memory arrives suddenly, sharp enough to tighten your chest.
“Dex.”
A soft hum answers you.
He doesn’t look at you immediately.
His attention feels elsewhere—somewhere beyond the elevator walls, already mapping possibilities you cannot see. Like he’s rehearsing a future you haven’t agreed to yet.
You hesitate, then force the words out anyway.
“Can you please… not bring up my dad’s shoulder scar?”
This time, Dex turns his head slightly.
There’s a brief flicker of confusion in his expression.
And something in you wants to shake him for it.
“Why?” he asks simply. “Did something happen to his shoulder?”
You stare at him.
For a moment, you genuinely cannot tell if he is joking.
Then it lands harder than humor ever could.
“You shot him,” you say quietly. “In the shoulder. Back when you attacked the Bulletin.”
Recognition shifts across his face.
It arrives cleanly.
Not gradual. Not emotional.
Just… acknowledgment.
“Oh,” Dex says after a beat. “Right.”
That’s it.
No apology. No visible discomfort. No revisiting of the moment as anything heavier than a fact misplaced in storage.
Something in your stomach tightens anyway, uneasy and unsteady, because suddenly you are no longer sure whether this was ever a good idea.
The elevator slows.
A final mechanical shudder.
Ding.
Fourth floor.
The doors slide open.
The hallway smelled faintly of old carpet and cigarette smoke.
Reader stood in front of a familiar faded green apartment door, its paint peeling slightly near the bottom from years of wear. Hanging in the center was a crooked WELCOME sign, tilted just enough to bother the eye.
“Wait,” she muttered, already reaching into her shoulder bag for her phone. “I should probably call first. See if he’s even home.”
Beside her, Dex stayed quiet.
His attention had already drifted elsewhere.
To the sign.
Without thinking much about it, his fingers lifted, carefully adjusting the crooked thing until it sat perfectly straight against the wood.
Only then did a faint smile touch his mouth.
Reader barely noticed, too focused on pulling her phone free and dialing.
The ringtone barely lasted a second before—
Click.
The door swung open.
“There’s my little pumpkin!”
Reader physically winced.
“Dad,” she groaned immediately, mortified by the sheer volume of his voice.
Her father grinned anyway, entirely unashamed as he pulled her into a warm crushing hug before she could protest further. Reader let herself sink into it automatically, hugging him back just as tightly.
For a moment—
just one—
she felt young again.
Safe.
Known.
“Oh, I missed you,” her father sighed dramatically before finally pulling back.
Only then did his eyes shift past her shoulder.
“Oh! And who’s this?”
Reader stiffened slightly.
Right.
Dex.
She pulled away from her father quickly, smoothing down her hair in nervous embarrassment before gesturing awkwardly beside her.
“Um… this is Benjamin Poindexter. He’s—”
“I’m Y/N’s boyfriend,” Dex cut in smoothly, already offering his hand with an easy practiced smile. “Nice to meet you, sir.”
Reader blinked.
The smile on Dex’s face looked almost surreal.
Polite.
Charming.
So painfully normal that it nearly unsettled her more than violence ever could.
“Ohhh,” her father lit up immediately. “You’re Dex.”
Reader’s stomach dropped instantly.
“Dad—”
“Aren’t you the one she used to talk about constantly back when she worked at—”
“Dad, stop. Please stop.”
Reader grabbed onto his arm in immediate panic, physically trying to steer him back inside the apartment before he could continue.
Behind her, Dex let out a low amused chuckle.
Oh, he was absolutely enjoying this.
“No, no,” her father continued mercilessly, pointing between them. “I’m serious. She had the biggest crush on you.”
“That is not true, I—”
Reader stopped abruptly.
Because when she looked back at Dex—
he was smiling at her.
Not smugly this time.
Not cruelly.
Just… warm.
There was something soft in his eyes she almost never got to see clearly. Something boyish. Quietly pleased in a way that made every defense she had prepared for herself suddenly disappear from her mouth entirely.
As soon as the apartment door opened a little wider, Dex was greeted by a long narrow hallway stretching deeper into the home.
The layout felt odd immediately.
To the left, the hallway opened directly into a cramped kitchen while the living room sat farther down near the end of the corridor, almost hidden from view. The apartment itself carried that unmistakable feeling of old New York buildings—poorly partitioned rooms shaped more by necessity than design.
And the walls—
they were painted in a strange muted color that sat somewhere between green and blue.
Too blue to be green.
Too green to be blue.
The kind of color that only existed in older apartments where paint had faded unevenly over decades.
“Sorry about the lighting, Benjamin,” your father called casually while disappearing toward the kitchen. “Got eye strain these days, so I keep everything dim.”
Only then did Dex properly notice it.
The apartment glowed softly in amber and yellow tones. No harsh white overhead lights. Just warm lamps tucked into corners, small pools of dim golden light spreading across cluttered furniture and stacked bookshelves.
“No sir,” Dex answered politely. “Not a problem at all.”
His eyes drifted instinctively toward you.
You already looked completely at home here.
Your coat was halfway off your shoulders as you moved through the apartment without thinking, navigating around furniture automatically. You hung your jacket onto a standing coat rack Dex genuinely hadn’t noticed at first beneath the hanging wall plants surrounding it.
It struck him suddenly then—
this was a apart of your world before him.
Soft.
Messy.
Lived in.
While you disappeared toward the kitchen, Dex found himself wandering slowly farther into the apartment on his own.
Careful where he stepped.
Newspapers and books sat scattered everywhere in uneven little stacks across tables, chairs, even the floor itself. The clutter should have irritated him.
Instead—
it almost amused him.
Now he understood where your habit of hoarding things came from.
His gaze lifted higher.
A bulletin board covered almost an entire section of the living room wall, crowded with pinned newspaper clippings layered over one another in messy overlapping rows.
Naturally, Dex moved closer.
His eyes scanned headline after headline.
Old articles.
New ones.
Most centered around vigilante attacks.
Masked violence.
Public debate.
Some articles praised vigilantes as heroes protecting the city when the system failed.
Others condemned them as unstable threats masquerading as justice.
Dex’s jaw shifted slightly at that.
Then—
his attention caught on one particular clipping.
Old.
Faded slightly at the corners.
But still recognizable immediately.
DAREDEVIL ATTACKS NEW YORK BULLETIN.
The bold black lettering stretched across the page like a ghost from another life.
And despite himself—
Dex smirked faintly.
“Dex?”
Your voice came from behind him suddenly.
His attention tore away from the article as he turned.
You stood a few feet away now, eyes just a little too wide.
You knew exactly what he had been looking at.
“Dad’s asking for you in the kitchen,” you said quietly.
Dex nodded once in understanding, already turning away from the bulletin board.
But before he could leave—
your fingers caught gently around the sleeve of his flannel.
He paused instantly.
Dex glanced downward.
You were staring at him carefully now, gripping the fabric tighter than necessary.
“Please,” you muttered softly. “Don’t mention it.”
He knew immediately what you meant.
Slowly, Dex’s hand lifted toward yours where it clutched his sleeve. His fingers closed gently around your hand, giving it one small reassuring squeeze.
“Don’t worry,” he murmured quietly. “I won’t.”
You kept staring at him anyway.
Like you couldn’t decide whether to believe him or not.
“Benjamin!” your father called from farther down the hallway. “Why don’t you come try this new pasta recipe? Tell me if it’s any good.”
Both of you looked toward the kitchen instinctively.
You finally let go of Dex’s sleeve.
Reluctantly.
“Coming, father,” Dex answered smoothly.
Then he looked down at you one last time.
And before you could react—
he leaned down and pressed a brief kiss against your temple.
Soft.
Careful.
Possessive in a way subtle enough that only you would truly feel it.
Then he released your hand entirely and disappeared down the hallway toward the kitchen.
You remained standing there alone beneath the dim apartment lights—
watching him go.
And hoping he actually meant what he promised.
The clinking of silverware begins fading into meaningless background noise somewhere around the fourth refill of wine.
You keep staring into the dark red liquid swirling lazily inside your glass instead.
It’s almost funny.
Of course Dex thought bringing an expensive bottle of wine was the perfect first-impression gift. So painfully normal. So absurdly fitting for the role he’s trying to play tonight.
Across the dinner table, your father laughs at something Dex says.
And Dex—
God.
He looks effortless.
Relaxed back in his chair, sleeves rolled casually to his forearms, red flannel hanging open over a plain white shirt. The kind of man people trusted immediately. The kind of man mothers adored and fathers offered second drinks to.
Not Bullseye.
Not the man from the news.
Just a boyfriend meeting your father for dinner.
Your stomach twists.
You glance toward your dad.
Still smiling.
Still talking animatedly about some article he’s been working on for the Bulletin.
Completely unaware that the man nodding along beside him once put a bullet through his shoulder without hesitation.
The realization makes your skin feel too tight suddenly.
Your father glances toward you briefly.
The motion snaps you upright.
You force a smile immediately.
Too fast.
Too stretched.
Your father smiles back anyway, unsuspecting as ever, and guilt hits so sharply you nearly look away first.
“Are you alright?”
The voice comes from beside you.
Not your father.
Dex.
You turn your head slowly toward him.
Hazel eyes already fixed on you with unsettling focus.
Studying.
Assessing.
Your pulse stumbles.
Because somehow, even while charming your father effortlessly, part of his attention has remained completely on you the entire time.
“I’m fine,” you say quickly.
Too quickly.
Dex’s eyes narrow almost imperceptibly.
Like he’s trying to figure out which lie you’re choosing tonight.
Before he can press further, your father continues speaking again.
“As I was saying…”
Relief floods you so hard it almost hurts.
Thank God.
Because if either of them looked too closely right now, you might actually break apart at this table.
Might say something irreversible.
Might tell your father that the polite man sitting beside him once chained you inside his apartment.
That he locked you in bathrooms when he left for work.
That he killed people in front of you with less hesitation than most people swat flies.
That somewhere between fear and obsession and survival, you fell in love with him anyway.
Your throat tightens.
You need more wine.
Immediately.
You grip the stem of your glass harder and take another mouthful—far too large to be considered a sip.
Across from you, your untouched food sits pushed around the plate in miserable little patterns.
You know your father notices.
He always notices when you don’t eat his cooking.
But tonight he thankfully says nothing.
Because Dex fills every silence before it can become dangerous.
He talks.
And talks.
And talks.
You’ve genuinely never seen him this conversational before.
Fishing.
Apparently they’re discussing fishing now.
You stare at him almost blankly while he leans comfortably into the conversation, smiling at all the right moments, asking questions at all the right times.
It feels rehearsed.
Not fake exactly—
worse.
Perfect.
Every now and then Dex glances sideways toward you like he’s seeking approval for his performance.
And every time, you nod automatically with another strained little smile.
Like a malfunctioning doll wound too tightly.
Meanwhile your eyes practically scream at him not to ruin this.
Not to slip.
Not to say the wrong thing.
Not to remind you who he actually is.
Then Dex laughs at something your father says.
Too wide.
Your stomach drops immediately.
The missing canine.
God.
Please don’t notice.
Please—
“Oh,” your father says suddenly, pointing lightly with his fork. “What happened to your tooth there? Looks like you lost that one pretty badly.”
Your body goes rigid.
The room feels smaller instantly.
Your mind scrambles violently for excuses—
but Dex answers first.
“Oh, that?” he says easily, touching the corner of his mouth with a casual grin. “Accident. Some angry guy tried smashing my face into a table.”
You shoot him a horrified look.
Don’t elaborate.
Please.
But your father only winces sympathetically.
“Ouch. Bar fight?”
He laughs suddenly.
“I got into plenty of those back in my twenties too.”
That catches you off guard enough to genuinely blink.
Your father?
Bar fights?
The man who alphabetizes bookshelves for fun?
Dex lights up immediately.
“Seriously?” He turns toward you with visible amusement. “Y/N, how come you never told me your dad throws hands?”
Both of them look at you expectantly.
And suddenly the silence stretches.
Too long.
Too heavy.
You can feel it pressing against your ribs.
You open your mouth.
Nothing comes out.
Your father watches you carefully now.
Dex too.
You can’t breathe properly.
“More drinks?” you blurt suddenly, lifting the wine bottle with forced brightness.
Dex chuckles immediately, clearly assuming you’re joking your way through the tension.
Your father doesn’t look nearly as convinced.
He studies your face for a moment too long before speaking gently.
“Actually… could you grab the gin from the fridge for me?”
Relief hits you so hard it almost makes you dizzy.
An escape.
God finally.
“It’s alright, I’ll get it,” Dex offers instantly, already half-moving from his chair like he’s determined to keep performing the role of perfect boyfriend down to the last detail.
But you shake your head too fast.
“No, Dex. It’s fine. I’ll go.”
You’re already standing before either of them can argue.
Already moving.
Already escaping into the kitchen before you have to look into Dex’s eyes again and see him noticing far more than you want him to.
The kitchen feels smaller somehow after you enter it alone.
Hotter too.
The old yellow overhead light hums faintly above you while the refrigerator door spills pale cold light across the cracked linoleum floor.
You open the fridge first.
Inside sits neatly organized groceries.
Vegetables.
Containers of leftovers.
Fruit.
Actual meal prep containers stacked carefully on the shelves.
Something inside your chest softens quietly at the sight.
Your father is still taking care of himself.
Even with you gone.
Even alone.
Honestly, he’s always been better at taking care of himself than you ever were.
You stare at the shelves a moment longer than necessary before finally leaning down to search deeper into the back.
There.
The blue gin bottle.
Half empty.
A small smile tugs at your mouth despite everything.
At least he’s indulging himself a little too.
You pull the bottle free and shut the refrigerator with your hip before moving toward the cabinets for glasses.
Down the hall, you can still hear your father and Dex talking comfortably at the table.
Laughing even.
The sound almost feels surreal.
For a brief moment, standing barefoot beneath the kitchen light with your father’s gin bottle in your hand, you think—
Maybe you worried too much.
Yes, Dex is violent.
Yes, he kills people with terrifying ease.
Yes, there are bodies attached to his name like shadows that never fully disappear.
But—
he can be good too.
You’ve seen it.
You’ve felt it.
Right now, he’s trying.
Trying to make you happy.
Trying to get along with your father because he knows your father matters to you.
And maybe after everything—
after all the fear and blood and damage—
maybe some part of him truly does want to deserve a place in your life.
Your hand reaches into the cabinet.
Fingers brushing against glass.
Then—
“Speaking of accidents, what happened to your shoulder?”
You freeze instantly.
Every muscle in your body locks.
Because you know that voice.
That lazy almost-curious tone.
Dex.
Your stomach drops so violently it feels physical.
He’s doing this on purpose.
“Oh, this?” your father laughs faintly from the dining room. “Long story.”
You can hear the smile in his voice.
Hear how unaware he still is.
“It happened around seven years ago. I got shot protecting a witness we were writing about for the Bulletin.”
Your pulse begins hammering harder.
Faster.
“It was some guy dressed like Daredevil. Later we found out he was working for Fisk.”
Your grip tightens painfully around the glass in your hand.
“Well,” your father continues with another soft laugh, “funny thing now is that Fisk’s running for mayor.”
“Wow,” Dex says smoothly. “That’s a real hero story, sir.”
The mockery is so subtle only you can hear it.
“I bet the papers loved that.”
“No, no,” your father laughs again. “I didn’t want attention on me. At the time, Jasper Evans mattered more than I did.”
Your breathing turns shallow.
“But,” your father admits warmly, “I guess I’m not humble enough to stop telling the story whenever someone asks.”
Dex laughs.
Actually laughs.
And something inside you snaps.
Because your father has no idea.
No idea that the man sitting at his table is the same man who put the bullet in his shoulder.
No idea he’s being studied.
Tested.
Toyed with.
The kitchen suddenly feels suffocating.
Your chest tightens so violently you think you might scream.
Instead—
you do something worse.
Something reckless.
Your fingers tighten around the empty gin glass.
And before you can fully think—
SMASH.
The sound explodes through the apartment.
Glass shatters across the floor.
Silence follows immediately after.
Then movement.
Fast.
In the dining room Dex goes still instantly.
Every instinct in his body sharpening at once.
His head snaps toward the kitchen.
Toward you.
“Y/N?” your father calls immediately.
You hear chairs scrape back.
Footsteps.
Your father hurries first.
Dex follows right behind him—
but not before smoothly grabbing a fork from beside his plate.
The movement is so quick most people wouldn’t even notice it.
You do.
Of course you do.
He enters the kitchen cautiously.
Predatory.
And then he sees you.
Leaning against the counter beneath the dim yellow light.
Glass scattered everywhere.
Blood running slowly down your foot onto the tile.
For a second, Dex just stares.
Confused.
Because something feels wrong immediately.
“Oh my God—Y/N, what happened?” your father rushes toward you, kneeling quickly beside the broken glass.
His hands reach instinctively for your ankle—
and you flinch away before he can touch you.
Too fast.
Too sharp.
“I accidentally dropped the glass,” you say quickly. “I’m sorry, dad.”
Your voice sounds strained even to yourself.
Your father looks up at you immediately.
Concern deepening.
Meanwhile Dex stands near the doorway unmoving.
Still holding the fork loosely at his side.
Watching you.
Watching the blood.
Watching your face.
His eyes narrow slightly.
Because he knows.
This should have been an accident.
But the way you’re looking at him now—
furious.
Breathing too fast.
Eyes shining with something raw and unspoken—
it suddenly doesn’t feel accidental at all.
“Wait,” your father says hurriedly, already standing again. “I’ll grab the first aid kit.”
“No,” you interrupt immediately.
Too quickly.
Both men look at you.
“I—I think we’re out of bandages,” you say fast. “I think you need to run to CVS.”
Your father frowns.
Confused now.
Really confused.
Because he knows you.
And he can feel it.
Feel the tension choking the room.
Feel that there’s something happening beneath the surface he doesn’t understand.
“Y/N…” he says carefully.
You look at him desperately.
“Please, dad,” you whisper. “I’ll be fine. Just… please go get bandages.”
The room falls quiet.
Your father studies your face for one long painful moment.
Searching.
Trying to understand.
Then finally—
slowly—
he nods.
“Alright,” he says softly.
He grabs his wallet from the counter before pausing beside Dex.
“Take care of my girl for me, alright?”
Dex only nods once.
Silent now.
Your father gives you one final lingering look before leaving the kitchen.
The front door opens.
Closes.
And suddenly—
the apartment becomes very, very quiet.
For a moment after the front door closes, neither of you move.
The apartment settles into silence slowly.
The distant hum of traffic outside.
The ticking kitchen clock.
Your uneven breathing.
Dex stands near the doorway still holding the fork loosely in his hand.
Then finally—
carefully—
he places it down onto the kitchen counter.
Clink.
The sound feels strangely loud.
His attention drops immediately afterward toward your foot.
Assessing.
Calculating.
The shard sliced clean through the skin near the arch of your foot. Not deep enough to need stitches, but enough for blood to trail steadily down your ankle and drip onto the white linoleum below.
Dex watches it for a second too long.
Blood always pulls his attention first.
Then practicality settles over him again.
Clean it up.
That’s the priority.
Clean the glass.
Stop the bleeding.
Fix the situation.
Dex turns away from you, already scanning the corners of the kitchen for a broom when—
“You said it on purpose… didn’t you?”
Your voice stops him instantly.
His shoulders still.
He doesn’t answer.
Because he knows exactly what you mean.
And you know he knows.
The silence afterward feels alive.
Like two snakes circling each other slowly, waiting to see which one strikes first.
Dex exhales quietly through his nose before beginning—
“I don’t know wha—”
“DON’T give me that bullshit!”
The shout cracks through the kitchen so sharply it physically halts him.
Dex turns around immediately.
And for the first time since he’s known you—
he looks genuinely puzzled.
Because you are angry.
Not frightened.
Not cornered.
Not quietly upset.
Angry.
Your chest rises hard beneath each breath, face flushed deep red beneath the yellow kitchen light.
Wine.
Adrenaline.
Humiliation.
All of it burning through you at once.
And Dex—
Dex almost looks thrown off by it.
Like some part of him genuinely did not imagine you capable of raising your voice at him.
“Don’t stand there and look me in the eyes pretending you didn’t know what you were doing,” you snap. “Because you did. You knew exactly what you were doing.”
Dex watches you carefully now.
Too carefully.
Like he’s trying to reassemble you into something recognizable again.
“Do you seriously think I’m the kind of daughter who would sit there and let my father get made into a joke?”
“That wasn’t my intention,” Dex replies evenly.
Calm.
Too calm.
That same unbearable steadiness he always falls back into whenever emotions become inconvenient.
Like arguing with concrete.
“I heard the smile in your voice,” you shoot back immediately. “I told you specifically not to bring it up and you still did it anyway.”
Your throat tightens harder.
“He cooked for you, Dex. He welcomed you into his home like his own son and you sat there laughing at him while he had no idea who you really are.”
Something flickers faintly across Dex’s expression then.
Annoyance maybe.
Frustration.
“Oh, quit it,” he mutters. “Your father was already circling the topic himself. We both know that.”
He turns away from you again mid-sentence, opening cabinets with growing irritation while still searching for the broom.
Like this conversation exists secondary to the mess on the floor.
Like cleaning up shattered glass is somehow easier than cleaning up whatever’s happening between you.
“It was only a matter of time before it came up,” he continues. “I just brought it onto the table first.”
“But you didn’t have to.”
Your voice shakes now.
Not from fear.
From disbelief.
“God, Dex—we both know you’re good at avoiding conversations when you want to. You dodge around every single thing that’s happened to you since I came back.”
That finally makes him stop searching.
Slowly, he turns toward you again.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The irritation in his voice sharpens now.
Accusatory.
You laugh once under your breath.
Disbelieving.
“It means I still don’t even know how you got out,” you say. “Or why AVTF agents were hunting you through the streets like an animal.”
Dex stares at you for a second.
Then shrugs lightly.
Coldly.
“Well… does it matter?”
Your mouth parts immediately.
Actual shock flashes across your face.
Because to him, somehow, that answer makes perfect sense.
“Does it matter?” you repeat.
“Yeah.” Dex gestures vaguely between the two of you. “Because I’m here now, aren’t I?”
He steps closer as he speaks.
Not aggressive.
Just firm.
Like he believes this should be obvious to you.
“I’m here doing this with you.” His voice lowers slightly. “Isn’t that what you wanted all those years?”
The words hit harder than they should.
Because once—
once they would have been true.
But now?
Now you’re not so sure anymore.
“What I wanted,” you say quietly, “was for you to leave me alone.”
That lands.
You see it immediately.
Tiny.
Brief.
But it lands.
Your voice cracks harder the longer you continue.
“I didn’t want gunfights. I didn’t want people dying in front of me.” Your breathing turns uneven again. “And I definitely didn’t want this.”
You gesture helplessly toward the dining room.
Toward the apartment.
Toward everything.
“I gave you a chance tonight to just be something normal.” Your eyes sting suddenly. “Something good. Something stable.”
Your voice shakes harder after that.
“Because I accepted it, Dex.”
He goes still.
“I accepted that maybe you didn’t know it was my father back then. That he was just another person standing in the way while you were carrying out Fisk’s orders.”
Dex’s jaw tightens.
“And you still had to turn it into a joke.”
Silence follows your words immediately.
Heavy silence.
The kind that settles into the room like smoke after a fire.
Even the kitchen suddenly feels too still.
Too small.
You can hear the refrigerator humming softly behind you.
Can hear the faint drip of blood still falling from your foot onto the tile.
Dex doesn’t move.
For a second, neither of you do.
And suddenly—
horribly—
you feel like you’ve said the wrong thing.
Not because it isn’t true.
But because truth sounds unbearable once it’s finally spoken aloud.
“You wanted me to leave?”
Dex’s voice comes out quieter than before.
Not angry.
Not cold.
Hurt.
The sound alone makes your throat tighten painfully.
Slowly, he looks up at you fully.
And your heart nearly stops at the sight of him.
Part 3<<<
A.N: Just watched Beef recently and got tips on how to write an argument scene which I've applied in this part. I hope it played out well.
Honestly, I love it when people verbally fight in fanfics or writing in general. I think it's the most honest people can ever be. Especially when their emotions are in all highs, when conversations are too fast to care what the other might think. To spill out everything and bleed everything bare. I really like that.
Summary: They kept performing love like it was something gentle, something survivable.
But illusions always crack under pressure, especially when built on violence and absence.
In the end, what’s left behind isn’t softness—it’s truth, and truth is never pretty.
C.w: institutionalization, hallucinations, emotional manipulation + unhealthy attachment, codependent relationship dynamics, implied past violence, blood / injury mention,dark romantic themes, implied sexual content
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♰╰♯₊⊹Masterlist♰╰♯₊⊹
“You’re not eating it right.”
The voice slips in softly—sweet, familiar… and wrong in a way Dex can’t fully explain anymore.
The cafeteria hums under a dying ceiling fan, its rotation slow and uneven, like even the air itself is tired. Everything is white. Too white. The walls, the trays, the uniforms, the light—pressing into his eyes until they sting without warning.
Furthermore, his hands.
His hands won’t stop shaking.
Not dramatically.
Just enough to make everything difficult.
A plastic spoon feels heavier than it should. His fingers don’t listen properly when he tries to adjust his grip.
There was a time this would’ve frustrated him.
Now it just… happens.
Like it’s normal.
Like it’s always been like this.
“I said you’re not eating it right.”
Closer now.
Dex blinks slowly, forcing his gaze upward through the haze clinging behind his eyes.
And there she is.
Y/N.
Not sitting across.
She’s there on the cafeteria table itself—lying on her stomach just inches from his tray, chin propped lazily on her hand like she has all the time in the world. Her legs swing slightly behind her, idle and careless, like she’s bored of everything in the room except him.
Like she belongs there more than anything else.
Like she’s always belonged there.
“You’re doing it wrong, Dex,” she says again, tone light—almost teasing.
His throat tightens immediately.
He glances down.
His food.
It’s wrong.
Of course it is.
The mashed potatoes are mixed with everything else. Carrots tangled into beans, meat folded into the starch like some kind of careless mistake. Chaos on a plastic tray.
His chest drops with sudden shame.
“I’m sorry, doll…” he murmurs, voice thin, slightly slurred at the edges. “I… I lost it for a second.”
He tries to smile when he looks back up at her.
It doesn’t quite form right.
His face feels heavy.
Numb in places it shouldn’t be.
Y/N hums softly in response, unimpressed, and rolls onto her back on the table like she’s bored of him already, staring up at the spinning ceiling fan.
“You always get distracted,” she says, almost absentmindedly. “It’s kind of pathetic.”
Dex lets out a small breath that might’ve been a laugh if his lungs worked properly today.
He doesn’t answer.
Talking takes effort.
Effort means losing focus.
And at the moment, he needs to fix it.
Carefully—so carefully—he starts separating the food again. Carrots first. Then beans. Then everything else into its own correct little space.
Plastic scraping plastic.
Slow.
Precise.
Almost ritualistic.
“I wouldn’t even eat that if I was starving,” she adds lazily from above.
Another soft laugh escapes him at that.
Not because it’s funny.
Because she said it like she always does.
Like she knows him.
Like she’s real.
“Hurry up,” she sighs. “You’re boring me.”
Dex pauses for half a second.
Just long enough to feel the pressure of her eyes on him.
Watching.
Waiting.
Judging.
And something inside him tightens—not in fear, but in urgency.
Like this matters more than anything else in the room.
So he continues.
Slower now.
More careful.
Until finally—
All the food sits in their own separate piles.
Dex stares at it.
A small, quiet victory.
His chest loosens slightly, like he’s done something meaningful. Something right.
He looks up immediately, searching her face for confirmation.
For approval.
For anything.
And she gives it to him.
A smile.
Soft.
Almost proud.
Then a gentle clap.
“Bravo,” she says. “Not bad.”
Something in him settles instantly. Relief floods in so fast it almost makes him dizzy.
She continues, voice lighter now.
“Now eat it in the right order.”
Dex nods quickly.
“Yes… of course.”
He picks up the carrot first.
Exactly like she said.
It tastes like nothing.
But that doesn’t matter.
Because she’s watching.
And she’s here.
And for now—
that is enough.
Click.
Three small paper cups are placed carefully onto the table beside him.
The sound alone makes something inside Dex sink.
His eyes slowly drag away from the open book resting in his lap and settle on the medication cups sitting beneath the fluorescent lights like tiny waiting graves.
Different colors.
Different shapes.
Different ways to hollow him out.
The library around him hums quietly with artificial stillness.
Everything in this place always feels too clean. Too bright. Too white.
White walls.
White tiled floors polished so hard they reflect the ceiling lights.
White uniforms moving back and forth in slow clinical patterns.
Even the air smells bleached here.
Sharp disinfectant mixed with stale coffee and overheated ventilation.
It makes his stomach turn if he thinks about it too long.
Above him, dusty ceiling fans rotate lazily with a constant mechanical hum. The sound blends together with the distant squeak of rubber soles against the floor and the occasional muted cough from another patient somewhere deeper in the ward.
Dex sits curled into the corner armchair near the back shelves, one leg bouncing faintly beneath him from restless leftover energy his medication never fully kills. The book in his hands trembles every now and then despite how tightly he grips it.
Reading used to be easy.
Now it feels like dragging his brain through wet cement.
Sometimes he rereads the same paragraph six times before realizing none of the words stayed inside his head. The letters blur together if he stares too long. His eyes burn constantly. His fingers go numb halfway through turning pages.
Still—
he tries.
Because reading makes him feel less dead.
Less like they’re winning.
“...You’re not really going to take those, are you?”
That voice.
Soft.
Sweet.
Rotting at the edges like fruit left too long in summer heat.
Dex’s eyes lift immediately.
There she is.
Y/N sits curled sideways in the chair beside him like she has always belonged there. Bare feet tucked beneath her thighs, knees drawn loosely to her chest. Her long hair spills over the backrest in dark messy waves that sway gently beneath the slow push of circulating air from the ceiling fan overhead.
She looks comfortable.
Real.
Too real.
Her gaze drifts lazily toward the medication cups before returning to him again.
“You know you’re going to miss me when you take them.”
She says it casually.
Like a fact already decided.
Dex swallows hard.
Because she’s right.
Every single time he takes them, she fades.
Not immediately.
First her voice starts sounding farther away.
Then her face blurs around the edges.
Then she disappears entirely for hours.
And those hours are always unbearable.
His heavy gaze drops back toward the paper cups waiting beside him.
He knows each pill by memory now.
The small white ones that make his hands steadier.
The blue capsules that leave his thoughts sluggish and heavy.
The oval tablets that slow his body down until even lifting a spoon feels exhausting.
He hates all of them.
Hates the way they make his muscles weak.
Hates how they fog his head.
Hates how they steal pieces of himself little by little until even anger takes effort.
“Don’t take them, Dex.”
Her voice softens.
Almost coaxing now.
“You want me here.”
God.
He does.
He wants her here so badly it physically hurts sometimes.
Because when she’s here, the loneliness eases.
When she’s here, the walls stop feeling so close.
His fingers twitch faintly against the spine of the book.
But then his eyes drift upward toward the center of the library.
Nurses.
A few of them pretending to organize paperwork near the desk.One helping another patient with a crossword puzzle.
And her.
That blonde nurse.
Dex’s jaw tightens instinctively the second he sees her.
Always watching him.
Always somehow noticing when he palms pills instead of swallowing them.
Always the one reporting him.
He hates her with a quiet, concentrated bitterness that sits beneath his skin like infection.
Because she’s the reason they drag him into isolation rooms.
The reason they strap him down.
The reason they force injections into his arm whenever he refuses medication long enough.
God.
The injections.
Those are the worst.
Those steal entire days from him.
He wakes afterward weak and half-conscious, drool sticking against his cheek, unable to tell if it’s morning or night anymore.
Sometimes he thinks those injections are slowly killing him.
Beside him, Y/N notices where his attention has gone.
Her expression sharpens instantly.
Cold amusement flickering across her face.
“I bet you could kill that bitch with the book.”
Dex’s grip tightens slightly around the hardcover.
The nurse keeps writing something onto her clipboard across the room, unaware.
“You wouldn’t even need much force.” Y/N tilts her head thoughtfully. “Corner of the spine straight into her temple.”
Dex stares.
“And then maybe again after she falls.” Her voice lowers softer. Meaner. “Just to make sure.”
The image forms instantly in his head before he can stop it.
Blood splattering bright against the library floor.
The wet crack.
Her body twitching once.
His fingers clamp harder around the book until the corners dig painfully into his palm.
Then—
the nurse glances up suddenly.
Like she felt him staring.
Dex immediately tears his eyes away.
Back to the pills.
Back to the little paper cups waiting patiently beside him.
His shoulders sink slightly.
Because he already knows how this ends.
He knows he’s going to take them.
Y/N knows too.
And disappointment spreads slowly across her face.
Sharp enough to make his chest ache.
“Oh my God,” she mutters. “Look at you.”
Dex’s throat tightens.
“You’re seriously going to do it.”
“Doll, I—”
“No.” She cuts him off immediately. “Don’t start.”
She leans back deeper into the chair, arms crossing over her chest.
“Go ahead then. Take them. Make me disappear again.”
Dex lowers his gaze.
Ashamed immediately.
“See if I care.”
But he knows she does care.
That somehow makes it worse.
“What was I expecting? You can’t even keep a promise,” she says quieter now.
Florida.
The word arrives in his head before she even says it.
“If you actually loved me,” she continues, “you would’ve gotten on that bus with me.”
His stomach twists violently.
Now she’s standing instead.
Hovering beside his chair.
Looking down at him.
“Instead you stayed here.” Her voice drips disgust. “Drugged out of your fucking mind. Barely able to hold a spoon straight.”
Dex’s lips part helplessly.
“I’m sorry.”
Pathetic.
The apology sounds pathetic even to him.
“Please, doll, I can—”
“Oh shut up.” She laughs once under her breath. “You always say sorry after.”
Her eyes harden.
“And I’m still alone.”
Dex can’t even look at her anymore.
The guilt feels too large for his body.
Heavy enough to split him open from the inside.
“Mr. Poindexter?”
The real voice cuts violently through the haze.
Dex blinks sharply.
The blonde nurse now stands directly beside him.
Close enough for him to smell cheap perfume beneath antiseptic soap.
Too close.
Way too fucking close.
“Your medication, sir.” Her tone remains polite. Calm. “You haven’t taken it yet.”
Behind her—
Y/N stares at him with pure disappointment.
Waiting.
Watching.
“Or,” the nurse continues gently, “if you’re refusing oral medication again, we can administer the injectable form instead.”
Not a threat.
But absolutely one.
Dex feels irritation flare instantly beneath his skin. His jaw shifts hard.
God he hates the way they pretend choices exist here.
“No,” he says quickly, forcing his voice steady. “No, I’m good, miss.”
The nurse doesn’t leave.
Still standing there.
Still watching him.
Dex’s fingers twitch faintly against the armrest.
Why the fuck is she standing so close?
Then—his gaze drops once more toward the cups.
Toward the pills.
Right.
Across from him, Y/N slowly smiles.
Small.
Cruel.
Like she already knows he’s about to betray her again.
Group therapy.
That’s what they insist on calling it.
Dex thinks it’s bullshit.
Nothing more than another way for the doctors to pry patients open piece by piece beneath soft voices and sympathetic smiles. A little social experiment designed to sort people neatly into categories.
Violent.
Manageable.
Recoverable.
Hopeless.
He sees through it immediately.
Of course he does.
He used to be FBI.
He knows interrogation when he sees it.
The room itself is almost offensively harmless looking. Warm lighting. Beige walls. Cheap cushioned chairs arranged into a circle to create the illusion of equality. Trust exercises. Emotional openness. Healing.
It makes Dex want to laugh.
Or kill somebody.
Maybe both.
The overhead lights buzz faintly above them while rain taps softly against the windows somewhere outside the building. The carpet beneath his shoes smells old. Damp. Like years of spilled coffee and nervous sweat soaked permanently into the fibers.
Dex sits slouched deeper into his chair near the back of the circle, one leg bouncing faintly beneath him from restless energy the medication never fully suppresses.
Across from him, some old guy keeps talking.
Talking.
Talking.
Something about his wife.
Government surveillance.
Microchips.
Poison in the walls.
Dex only catches fragments because honestly, he couldn’t care less.
The old man’s voice has this wet nasal quality to it that grates against his skull.
Still—
everyone pretends to listen seriously.
Doctors nodding thoughtfully.
Patients staring blankly into space.
Some look sedated enough to barely stay upright.
Others look terrified to even speak.
Dex hates all of them a little.
His gaze slowly lifts around the circle before settling somewhere much more important.
Her.
Y/N sits cross-legged directly in the middle of the therapy circle instead of using one of the chairs. Like she doesn’t belong to their rules. Like this place physically cannot contain her the way it contains everyone else.
She’s facing him.
Of course she is.
One elbow rests lazily against her knee while she listens to the old man ramble with exaggerated interest. Then suddenly she glances toward Dex and pulls a mocking face behind the man’s back.
Dex nearly smiles immediately.
Her nose wrinkles.
Mouth twisting dramatically.
Mocking the old man’s whining voice silently.
It catches Dex so off guard a small smirk actually tugs at the corner of his mouth.
Christ.
He almost laughs.
He has to bring his hand up slowly against his mouth to hide it.
Y/N notices.
And grins wider.
For a second—
just one second—
the room feels lighter.
Almost normal.
“Mr. Poindexter?”
Dex stiffens slightly.
The doctor’s voice cuts through the haze like a knife.
He raises his head.
And immediately realizes everyone is staring at him now.
God.
He fucking hates this part.
The attention.
The watching.
Every single face turned toward him with that same cautious curiosity like they’re observing a dangerous animal behind glass.
Some patients avoid eye contact immediately after.
Others stare too long.
The doctors are worse.
They always look fascinated.
Like they’re waiting for him to become something.
“Would you like to contribute anything to the discussion?”
Dex’s jaw shifts faintly.
His fingers twitch once against the armrest.
“No,” he says flatly after a second. “No, sir.”
The doctor studies him briefly.
Too briefly.
Not enough to be satisfying.
Then finally nods.
“Alright then. Please continue, Mr. Halpern.”
And immediately the old man starts talking again.
That awful wet droning voice flooding the room once more.
One by one the others turn their attention away from Dex.
Conversation resumes.
The spotlight leaves him.
Thank God.
Dex slowly sinks back into his chair again.
But the irritation remains crawling beneath his skin.
He hates it here.
He hates this room.
These people.
These doctors pretending they understand violence while hiding behind clipboards and medication schedules.
His eyes drift slowly toward the doctor speaking.
Thin glasses.
Sharp collar.
Cheap buttons stitched onto his shirt.
Dex’s thoughts sharpen automatically.
The glasses first.
Straight into the throat.
Then the buttons.
Small enough velocity could puncture an eye socket easy.
Then maybe the ceramic mug near the windowsill.
The room maps itself instinctively inside his head.
Angles.
Distances.
Weak points.
He could do it.
God—
he really could.
He feels lucid enough today.
Fast enough.
The old man keeps talking about his dead wife.
Excuses.
All excuses.
Who kills someone they supposedly love over paranoid bullshit like that?
Pathetic.
All of them.
Dex’s jaw tightens.
Maybe he should just—
A hand appears suddenly at the edge of his vision.
Small.
Delicate.
Resting against the carpet between his knees.
Dex blinks.
And slowly looks up.
Y/N kneels there on the floor now.
Looking up at him.
Those wide soft eyes filled with something dangerously close to concern.
Oh.
Doll.
The violent static in his head quiets almost instantly.
The voices flatten into meaningless noise.
Mouths moving without purpose.
Rain taps faintly against the windows somewhere far away, but even that begins fading too.
Because she starts crawling closer.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Her movements are unhurried, graceful in a way that makes Dex’s chest tighten painfully.
The fabric of her sleeves drags softly across the carpet as she moves between the chairs toward him, eyes never leaving his face for even a second.
Like she already knows he’ll wait for her.
Like she knows he’d wait forever.
Dex’s fingers tighten against the arms of his chair.
He watches her approach with an intensity bordering on hunger.
God.
He misses her.
He misses her so fucking much.
She stops directly between his knees.
Close enough now that he can see the tiny crease between her brows. The faint shine against her lips. The way her breathing parts her chest slowly beneath the fabric of her dress.
One of her hands rises carefully toward his thigh.
Dex inhales sharply.
The sound almost invisible beneath the therapist’s droning voice.
Her palm settles there.
He can’t feel it.
Not really.
No pressure.
No warmth.
Nothing but the ghost of something that isn’t there.
And yet his entire body reacts anyway.
His muscles loosen.
His jaw unclenches.
Like his mind has already decided her touch is real long before reality can disagree.
“Dex,” she whispers.
Soft enough it feels private.
Intimate.
Like she’s speaking directly into the hollow parts of him no one else can reach.
His eyes lift to hers immediately.
Obediently.
Y/N slowly rises higher onto her knees until her face hovers inches from his own.
Too close.
Not close enough.
Dex can see every detail of her like this.
The softness beneath her eyes.
The curve of her mouth.
The faint sadness lingering there beneath the teasing expressions she usually gives him.
And suddenly he wants—
He wants to grab her.
Pull her into his lap.
Bury his face into her neck until everything around him disappears.
He wants to crawl inside her and stay there until the drugs stop making his hands shake, until the world becomes quiet.
Until all he feels and remembers is her warmth.
But he doesn’t move.
Because sometimes when he reaches for her—
she disappears.
And the last time it happened, he spent two days staring at a cafeteria wall waiting for her to come back.
He can’t survive that again.
Not today.
“Baby,” she murmurs.
The word slides through him slowly.
Tenderly.
“My poor baby.”
Her hand drifts upward from his thigh.
Past his chest.
Past the collar of his shirt.
Until finally her palm cups his cheek.
Dex’s breathing stutters.
Again—
he feels nothing.
No skin.
No heat.
Only air brushing past him from the spinning ceiling fans overhead.
But instinctively, helplessly, he leans into her touch anyway.
Eyes lowering heavier.
Almost closing.
Like his body is trying to remember what being comforted feels like.
And when she smiles—
soft and aching and proud all at once—
something inside his chest twists so violently it nearly hurts.
There.
That expression.
That look alone makes enduring this place worth it.
Worth the pills.
Worth the restraints.
Worth the endless white walls and dead fluorescent lights and doctors watching him like he’s already half gone.
Because she’s here.
She’s still here.
Dex smiles before he can stop himself.
Small.
Tired.
Completely hers.
The room is barely lit.
Only a thin strip of hallway light seeps under the door, cutting across the floor like a dull blade, barely enough to outline the edges of the bed.
Everything else sits in heavy shadow.
Dex’s bed is too small for the frame it’s built into. The metal squeaks faintly every time the structure breathes under movement—old rusted joints complaining under invisible weight. The mattress is thin, uneven, pressed down in places where too many nights have been spent staring at the ceiling instead of sleeping.
And the sheets—
white.
Too white.
Bleached so aggressively they almost hurt to look at. The smell never leaves. It clings to the back of his throat, sharp and chemical, like it’s soaked into his skin rather than fabric. No matter how long he’s been here, it never becomes familiar. It only deepens, like it’s learning him.
Like it’s trying to erase him.
But tonight—
there’s something worse in the bed than the smell.
You.
Lying across the mattress like you belong there more than anything in this place ever has.
One leg hangs lazily off the edge, foot brushing the air just above the floor. The other is bent, knee raised slightly, relaxed in a way that feels almost careless.
In your hands is a folded letter.
Paper worn soft at the edges from being read more than once.
Dex knows every line of it already.
Not because he memorized it.
Because he needs to.
The letters are the only thing keeping time from collapsing entirely inside him.
Every Friday, like clockwork, a white envelope arrives. Florida stamp. Slightly smudged ink sometimes. Always the same weight. Always addressed in handwriting he could recognize blind.
And in return—
he writes back.
Brown-yellow hospital envelopes. Thin paper. Too small for everything he wants to say.
If it were up to him, he would send her dozens a week. Hundreds. Anything to fill the silence this place forces into him. But the rules don’t allow it. One letter out. One letter in.
So he makes that one letter matter.
He has to.
Because without it, there is nothing between him and the feeling that he has already been buried alive.
A quiet rhythm exists now inside the routine.
Push-ups at night.
When the medication finally loosens its grip just enough for his mind to feel sharp again.
When the others are asleep and the hallways stop pretending to be empty.
He stopped taking the full dose weeks ago.
Or stopped keeping it down, at least.
Tonight is no different.
His hands press against the cold cement floor. Muscles tighten, release, tighten again. Sweat runs down his back in thin lines, soaking into the fabric of his shirt. Every movement is controlled—precise, almost angry in its discipline.
Up.
Down.
Up.
Down.
Each repetition is something he can still control.
Something real.
And on the bed above him—
you read aloud.
“…That’s all that happened this week,” you finish softly, voice drifting through the room without resistance, like the walls themselves are letting it pass unharmed.
“I hope they don’t mix your envelope up again like last time. I was really worried something happened when you didn’t write for two weeks.”
Dex doesn’t stop moving.
He can’t.
“If I’m honest,” your voice continues, turning the page lightly, “I only found out it was a mistake on Monday.”
A pause.
“I’m sorry about the room change you mentioned. I hope things worked out.”
His arms shake slightly on the next descent.
Not from exhaustion.
From restraint.
“Don’t worry about me,” you read on, quieter now. “Everything’s fine here. Just stay safe, okay?”
The letter ends.
And the silence that follows feels heavier than the words.
You place it down gently beside you on the bed.
Dex doesn’t move for a moment.
Only his breathing fills the room—rough, uneven, too loud for such a small space.
“You got something on your mind?” you ask finally.
Your voice doesn’t echo.
“Come on,” you continue lazily, stretching slightly, “better to say it out loud than let it sit there.”
Dex doesn’t answer.
He just keeps going.
Push-ups.
Again.
Again.
Each one sharper than the last.
Like he’s trying to outrun the thoughts forming behind his eyes.
“102,” you say suddenly.
He pauses for half a second—but only half.
“103.”
His jaw tightens.
“104.”
The rhythm shifts.
“105.”
He stops.
The silence that follows is immediate and absolute.
Dex rolls onto his back, chest rising hard as he tries to catch air that feels too thin, too stale. The cement is cold against his spine. The hospital air crawls into his lungs like something older than him, something that refuses to leave no matter how hard he breathes it out.
For a moment, he just lies there.
Staring upward.
Listening to nothing.
Then—
he opens his eyes.
And you are still there.
On the bed.
Leaning slightly forward now, elbows propped as you look down at him with a quiet curiosity that feels almost intimate in its stillness. Your lips are slightly parted, like you were about to say something but decided not to.
Dex sits up slowly.
Elbows resting on his knees.
Sweat cooling on his skin.
Breath still uneven.
He stares at you for a long moment.
Not speaking yet.
Because the truth he’s been circling all night finally presses against the inside of his throat—
and this time,
he doesn’t push it away.
“Why do you keep things from me?”
Dex’s voice comes out rough.
Raw around the edges from exertion and something far worse than exhaustion.
Sweat drips slowly from the ends of his hair down the side of his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt as he sits there on the floor beside the bed, chest still rising unevenly from the push-ups. But the strain in his body now has nothing to do with exercise anymore.
It’s restraint.
Pure restraint.
You glance at him from the bed.
Amused.
Like you already know where this conversation is heading and intend to enjoy every second of it anyway.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you reply lightly.
Too lightly.
The smile curving at your lips is soft enough to almost pass as innocent.
Almost.
Dex lets out a breath through his nose.
Short.
Unsteady.
“I’m talking about the fact that after three years…” he says slowly, eyes locked onto you now, “I still don’t know where you live.”
You say nothing.
“I don’t know who you’re with.”
Still nothing.
“You tell me you work at a diner but Jesus Christ, there’s thousands of diners in America.”
The desperation slips through at the end no matter how hard he tries to keep his voice even.
He hates that.
Hates sounding needy.
Weak.
But worse—
he hates not knowing.
You merely purse your lips thoughtfully, gaze wandering lazily around the room instead of looking at him directly. Your fingers smooth absentmindedly over the folded letter resting beside your thigh.
Like this conversation bores you already.
“Your point being?” you ask.
Dex stares at you.
Long.
Hard.
And when he speaks again, the words sound quieter this time. More dangerous because of it.
“I think you’re running from me.”
The sentence visibly hurts him to say.
You can hear it.
Like every word had to be dragged up manually from somewhere deep inside his chest.
“I think…” his voice catches briefly before steadying again, “…you’re avoiding me instead of waiting for me.”
Silence settles over the room.
The old heater rattles somewhere in the walls.
Outside the barred window, snow continues drifting silently beneath the prison floodlights.
You sigh softly before finally pushing yourself upright on the bed.
The rusted frame doesn’t creak beneath your weight.
Like you were made of feathers.
Now sitting properly, you look down at him where he remains on the floor beside the bed, arms resting loosely over his knees.
From the weak hallway light slipping beneath the cracked door, Dex can just barely make out your expression.
And somehow—
the pity in your eyes hurts worse than cruelty would have.
Because it almost resembles kindness.
Almost.
“Dex,” you murmur softly, “you know I can’t answer that.”
His gaze drops immediately.
Like the words physically force his head downward.
Of course.
Of course you can’t.
The ache blooming inside his chest turns heavier.
Denser.
But then—
your voice cuts through again.
“Maybe…” you say thoughtfully.
Dex slowly looks back up.
You tilt your head slightly, studying him with that same terrible softness.
“Maybe I don’t want you knowing what I’m doing.”
There’s something underneath the sentence.
A sharpness disguised as teasing.
And Dex hears it instantly.
You see it too.
The way his jaw tightens.
The way his fingers flex once against his knees.
But you continue anyway.
Cruel thing.
“Or maybe…” your voice lowers just slightly, “I don’t want you knowing who I’m doing.”
Dex stands so abruptly the metal bedframe beside rattles.
The sound cuts violently through the room.
“Who is it?”
The question leaves him through clenched teeth.
Immediate.
Instinctive.
His breathing turns harsher now.
Not from the workout.
From anger.
From jealousy so intense it nearly blacks his vision at the edges.
You remain completely unfazed.
Still seated on the bed.
Still calm.
You only shrug one shoulder lazily.
“Maybe it’s someone better.”
The sentence lands like a blade slipping neatly between ribs.
“Someone stronger.”
Another twist.
“Someone who actually feels things.”
Dex’s face hardens.
“Someone who knows how to take care of me.”
You look him up and down then.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
And God—
that expression on your face.
Like you’re assessing damage.
“Or,” you continue softly, “maybe it’s just someone who isn’t trapped in here writing me one letter a week.”
Silence.
Dex stares at you like you’ve just struck him across the face.
His lips press together so tightly they almost disappear.
And for one horrible second—
he genuinely looks close to breaking.
“What? Am I wrong?” you ask with a small laugh.
That sweet laugh.
That same laugh he used to think sounded beautiful no matter what came out with it.
Now it cuts straight through him.
You sigh before sliding off the bed entirely.
Bare feet touching the cold floor softly.
Dex watches you cross the room toward the window.
Toward the bars.
The thick metal divides the outside world into narrow vertical slashes of white and black. Beyond the glass, chicken wire fencing stretches over the window like another layer of humiliation.
Not a hospital.
A cage.
You stand there quietly for a moment, watching snow drift under the circling beams of the guard tower lights outside.
“I have a life out there, Dex,” you murmur finally.
You still don’t look at him.
“I can’t wait forever.”
The words hollow him out instantly.
“But you promised,” he says.
And this time—
his voice shakes.
Actually shakes.
“You promised you’d wait for me.”
The sting behind his eyes catches him off guard.
Dex swallows hard.
Ashamed of it immediately.
You slowly turn around then.
And for one strange moment—
you simply stare at him.
Blankly.
Like you’re observing something from very far away.
All the desperation pouring out of him.
All the fear.
All the hurt.
And none of it reaches you.
Then—
you smile.
Soft.
Warm.
Beautiful enough to ruin him completely.
You step closer again slowly.
“Of course I’ll wait for you,” you whisper.
Dex’s entire body stills.
“Remember?” you ask gently. “I’m your girl.”
Dex caves from it instantly.
Desperately.
“Of course I’ll wait for you,” you murmur again.
“Always.”
And just like that—
the tension inside him collapses.
Because it doesn’t matter that moments ago you were tearing him apart.
It doesn’t matter that he knows something about this feels wrong.
The second you offer him reassurance—
even false reassurance—
he takes it like a starving dog offered food.
You step away from the window slowly.
The snow outside continues falling in silence behind you, pale under the prison floodlights, but Dex barely notices it anymore.
His entire attention remains fixed on you.
Watching.
Waiting.
Like saying the wrong thing now might make you disappear again.
So he says nothing.
He just stands there in the dimness of the room, chest still rising unevenly from exertion, sweat cooling against his skin beneath the thin fabric of his shirt.
You stop directly in front of him.
Close enough that he could lean forward and bury his face into your neck if he wanted.
Close enough that he could almost pretend this room isn’t rotting around him.
Your hands rise first.
Slowly.
Delicately.
They settle against the center of his chest.
Dex’s breath catches instantly.
His eyes widen slightly as he looks down.
Nothing.
He feels nothing.
No pressure.
No warmth.
Not even the faintest ghost of touch.
Just the sight of your hands resting over him while his own heartbeat pounds violently beneath skin you cannot actually touch.
For a brief horrible second, grief flashes across his face so fast it almost disappears before it fully forms.
Because God—
he misses being touched.
Not sex.
Not even affection.
Just touch.
Real touch.
The kind that proves another human being exists beside you.
“Dex.”
Your voice snaps his gaze upward immediately.
Like instinct.
Like obedience.
You’re looking up at him softly now, eyes heavy with something almost unbearably tender.
“Give me your hands,” you whisper.
The words come so close to his face that he almost expects breath to brush against his mouth.
But there’s still nothing.
Dex hesitates only a second before slowly lifting his hands between you.
Palms open.
Completely vulnerable.
Completely yours.
Your own hands hover over his carefully, never quite touching, yet somehow still directing every movement he makes. And though he cannot physically feel your fingers guiding him—
his body reacts anyway.
Because after years of isolation, years of white walls and pills and silence and hallucinations bleeding into reality—
his mind no longer needs reality to make you real.
Slowly, you guide his hands downward first.
Toward his stomach.
The moment his palms press against himself, Dex lets out a rough unsteady breath.
His own skin feels hot through the damp fabric of his shirt.
Large hands.
Rough hands.
Wrong somehow.
Too solid to replace yours.
And yet—
with your invisible hands guiding his movements—
suddenly the pressure of his own palms begins blurring into something else.
Not himself.
You.
“Do you feel me, baby?” you whisper softly.
The question shatters something inside him.
“Yes,” Dex breathes instantly.
Too fast.
Too desperate.
“Yes—yes, I can feel you.”
His voice cracks apart around the confession.
And God, the way you smile at him for it—
soft.
Pleased.
Like he’s finally doing something right.
Your invisible hands guide his own higher.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Like you’re savoring him.
His palms drag upward over the hard lines of his abdomen, over the tense muscle of his chest where his heartbeat slams violently beneath bone and skin.
He shudders.
Actually shudders.
The room feels unbearably warm now despite the freezing air creeping through the barred window. Every breath feels too thick in his lungs. Too shallow.
Your eyes never leave him.
That’s the worst part.
Not the hallucination.
Not the loneliness.
Not even the desperation clawing through him.
It’s the way you look at him.
Like he’s beautiful.
Like he’s worth touching gently.
Like he isn’t something broken beyond repair.
Dex nearly caves under that look alone.
Your hands continue guiding his.
Higher.
To his throat.
His jaw.
His fingers drag across the column of his neck slowly, trembling faintly from exhaustion and want alike. The scrape of his own rough skin against himself should feel pathetic. Humiliating.
Instead—
his lips part with a quiet shaky breath.
Because under your gaze, his mind twists every sensation into you.
His own touch becomes yours.
His warmth becomes yours.
Even the drag of his fingertips over his throat feels dangerously close to imagining your nails there instead.
“Good,” you murmur softly.
The praise sinks into him like a blade.
Dex’s eyes flutter briefly.
His breathing turns ragged.
And for one terrible beautiful second—
his mind fully gives in.
Because when he looks at you now, hovering so close in the dark with those half-lidded eyes fixed entirely on him—
he can almost believe it.
Almost believe you’re truly here with him.
Seeing him.
Touching him.
Loving him.
Not the patient.
Not the killer.
Not Bullseye.
Just as your boy.
Then—
You guide his right hand higher until his palm finally presses fully against his own mouth.
Warm.
Damp breath against skin.
The texture of his own fingers rough against his lips.
And somehow—
somehow—
his starving mind twists it into something else entirely.
Your eyes lift to meet his one last time before you lean closer.
Dex visibly shudders.
A sharp trembling breath leaves him as he watches you lower your mouth toward the back of his hand with agonizing slowness. Like you’re giving him time to stop this.
As if he ever could.
Your lips brush against his knuckles.
And though he feels absolutely nothing—
no pressure.
no warmth.
no skin—
his entire body reacts like you kissed him directly on the mouth.
A broken sound catches in his throat.
Low.
Humiliated.
Needy enough to make his chest ache.
Dex kisses his own palm back hesitantly at first.
Testing it.
His lips move carefully across his knuckles, reverent in the way starving people handle something precious. Like he’s terrified the illusion might collapse if he moves too quickly.
But then—
“Mmph…”
The sound slips from you softly.
A quiet muffled whimper.
Sweet.
Suppressed.
That exact sound you used to make when he kissed you too deeply and secretly enjoyed it far more than you wanted him to know.
Dex’s eyes widen immediately.
The noise goes through him like a live wire.
Straight into his spine.
His stomach tightens violently.
You open your eyes slightly then, staring at him through lowered lashes, and the hunger in your expression mirrors his so perfectly that the line between hallucination and reality begins dissolving completely.
His next kiss turns desperate.
He presses harder against his own hand, mouth opening against his skin as if it truly belongs to you instead.
A shaky breath leaves him through his nose.
His tongue drags slowly across his knuckles.
Wet.
Hungry.
Exploring.
The sound alone fills the tiny room obscenely loud beneath the distant hum of fluorescent hallway lights.
Dex sucks gently at the skin of his fingers like he’s pulling your lower lip between his teeth.
Another soft sound leaves you.
And that—
that destroys whatever restraint he had left.
His breathing roughens instantly.
He kisses harder.
Deeper.
Eyes still open the entire time because he cannot risk losing sight of you now.
Not now.
Not when you look this real.
Your face hovers impossibly close to his.
Mouth parted.
Breathing unevenly with him.
Watching him with that same unbearable tenderness that makes him feel worshipped instead of pitied.
His free hand grips the edge of the rusted bedframe beside him hard enough to make it creak loudly.
Like he needs something solid to anchor himself before he completely disappears into this.
His tongue moves greedily against his own skin while his mind reshapes every sensation into you.
Your mouth.
Your breathing.
The taste of your tongue against his.
The softness of your lips giving beneath his own.
You.
Only you.
But—
He needs more.
God, he needs more.
More closeness.
More pressure.
More of this horrible beautiful imitation before morning comes and the pills drag you away from him again.
Dex kisses his palm again and again like devotion.
Like prayer.
Like self-destruction disguised as love.
And somewhere underneath all of it—
beneath the delusion,
beneath the hunger,
beneath the aching intimacy of kissing himself just to pretend it’s you—
a small fractured part of him understands exactly how ruined this is.
He knows you are not real.
Knows he is kneeling half-sweating in the dark of a psychiatric ward, kissing his own hand like a man starving to death beside an imaginary feast.
Knows this should horrify him.
But when you look at him like that—
soft.
wanting.
loving—
he cannot bring himself to stop.
Because reality has never touched him as gently as you do.
So if he cannot have you truly—
then he will take the imitation.
He will kiss the ghost of you from his own skin.
He will let the fantasy consume every remaining sane part of him whole.
And he will love you there anyway.
Part 2<<<<<
A.N: OMG I need this Dex in mental hospital scenes to be it's own separate part cause wow. I was ovulating when I was writing this and grls the idea—the concept of a man yearning enough for you that he would make out with his own hand imagining you? Oh he lost his mind. He truly must have lost his mind.
I know you're taking a hiatus on the "Quiet Game" series but I just wanted to let you know how much I adore your work!
I simply love the way you write and how you keep it vague without having to "spoon feed" the reader's and that's hard thing to do! Not everyone writes like that anymore! Not that I'm shaming other writers but it's definitely a unique thing and especially when it comes to x reader fanfictions.
The main character is also beautifully fleshed out and it reminded me of "Teresa" a mexican soap opera where the female protagonist struggles in between her ambition and love.
Can't wait for when you decide to update again and definitely take your time and enjoy the current series you're writing!<3
Omg thank you so much for the review. I'm so sorry, I can't update on Quiet Game after so long. To be honest, Quiet Game was a long project and as you have seen from the amount of chapters I've written, I actually got burn out by the series. I want to start exploring other themes and I couldn't really do that in Quiet Game so I have to drop it for a while.
I think I'll probably update Quiet Game... after I finish my current series. 🥲🥲🥲 sorry. But I hope the current Series I'm working on Polaris and Northbound can satisfy you just like Quiet Game did. Thank you so much for reading my work and hope you have a great day like I did from this inbox💗💗💗💗
Masterlist♰╰♯₊⊹ <<<< of all my series
Summary: Seven years after fleeing New York, Y/N is pulled back into Benjamin Poindexter’s orbit after receiving a letter she hoped would never come.
C.W: dead dove adjacent themes, toxic romance, unhealthy attachment, co-dependency, obsessive behavior, violence, gore, blood, gun violence, murder, psychological instability, trauma responses, manipulation,
<<<Previous Chapter ⋆♱ ݁ Next Chapter>>>
♰╰♯₊⊹Masterlist♰╰♯₊⊹
You stare at the dead body of the officer.
He was just letting you go.
That thought refuses to settle properly. It keeps breaking apart in your mind, reshaping itself into something worse.
A man.
A shift at work.
A house somewhere.
A family waiting for him to come back.
Kids who don’t know yet that dinner will never happen.
Your stomach tightens hard enough that it hurts.
“Y/N… he’s dead. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
Dex’s voice cuts through the haze.
Steady. Almost gentle. Like he’s talking you down from something unnecessary.
His hand lowers, and the gun is taken from your grip without resistance.
You let it go.
You don’t even realize you’ve released it until it’s already in his hand.
He turns it once, casually, like he’s confirming what it is before memory clicks behind his eyes.
Then he stills.
A small sound leaves him—something between a breath and a laugh.
Not soft.
Not warm.
Recognizing.
Because it’s his gun.
The same one you once pressed against his forehead with shaking hands. The same one that had made the entire room feel like it was collapsing inward around the two of you.
And now it’s just… back.
Like it was always going to return to him.
Dex rotates it between his fingers, almost thoughtfully, before his expression shifts. Subtle at first. A pause too long between blinks.
Then he works it open.
Checks it.
His movements are automatic—clean, practiced.
Click.
Click.
Click.
The chamber opens in the dim blue light of the alley.
Empty.
The realization doesn’t come with panic.
It comes with silence.
Dex goes still.
Completely still.
For the first time tonight, nothing in him moves forward.
His eyes stay on the gun a second longer than necessary.
“…Doll,” he says, quieter now, “there’s no bullets in the chamber.”
Your gaze snaps to him.
The words don’t fully settle at first. Your mind is still stuck in the dead weight on the ground infront you, still stuck in the sound that shouldn’t exist anymore.
Her lips part.
“I… I didn’t want to fire so—”
Dex exhales sharply through his nose.
It isn’t laughter this time.
It’s irritation.
Frustration cutting through the calm like a blade finally deciding it’s tired of being held still.
“Oh,” he says, tilting his head slightly, “so you were just waving around an empty shotgun?”
He steps closer.
“Do you have any idea how stupid that is?”
Your back hits the chain-link fence again, metal cold through your spine, trapping you in place without needing force.
“I—I wasn’t—”
“You weren’t what?” His voice sharpens. “You didn’t want to kill him?”
A beat.
Dex scoffs softly, like the idea itself is exhausting.
“Sure. And what, you thought he was going to just… wait politely while you figured it out?”
The shift happens slowly enough that you almost miss it at first.
Not the anger.
Something underneath it.
The recalculation.
Dex doesn’t break eye contact, but something in his attention changes—like a door quietly closing behind his thoughts.
Like he’s stopped reacting to what happened and started reacting to what it means.
He steps in closer again.
But this time it isn’t intimacy.
It’s correction.
His hands lift the gun back toward you.
You barely have time to register it before his fingers close over yours.
Fast.
Firm.
Completely enclosing your grip.
The metal is suddenly trapped between both of your hands—your fingers underneath, his over yours—forcing your hold to lock whether you choose it or not.
Your body reacts before your mind can object, tightening instinctively under the pressure of his grip.
Hard.
Unavoidable.
Dex leans in just slightly as he adjusts your hands, positioning them with precise, controlled movements like he’s fixing something that was assembled incorrectly.
His voice is lower now.
Not soft.
Not angry.
Certain.
“In this world,” he says slowly, each word measured, “you either shoot or you get shot.”
A beat.
His jaw tightens.
“No one is going to hesitate for you. No one is going to give you time to think about how you feel about it.”
His eyes lock onto yours.
Cold focus.
“You don’t get to be soft when the only option left is a gun in your hand.”
A pause.
Then, sharper.
“Do you hear me?”
You look at him.
Really looks.
There’s something in your face that doesn’t belong here anymore—confusion, shock, a slow drowning kind of fear that has nowhere to go.
Your nod comes a second later.
Small.
Too quick.
Too compliant.
It doesn’t satisfy him.
It immediately shows.
Dex’s expression shifts—not into anger, but something more complicated. Something almost pained.
“No,” he mutters under his breath, almost to himself. Like he’s correcting a mistake only he can see. “That’s not—”
A breath leaves him.
Controlled. Forced down.
Then his grip on your hands loosens by a fraction.
Not enough to release you.
Just enough to reposition.
His voice changes next. Softer in tone, but not in meaning.
“I shouldn’t have put you in that position,” he says.
His eyes flick down, then back up to your face, studying you like he’s recalibrating something.
“That’s on me.”
It isn’t an apology for what just happened.
It’s an apology for how you reacted to it.
For the way you looked at him instead of the outcome he expected.
For the way you hesitated inside a moment he believes should have been simple.
“I’ll get you bullets,” he says immediately after, like the solution is already decided, already in motion. “You’ll be ready next time.”
His hands move again.
Not asking.
Not checking.
Just taking you.
Dex pulls you in by the arms first, firm and deliberate, drawing you forward until there’s no space left between you to resist even if you wanted to. Then he shifts you in closer, guiding you into his body like he’s placing you somewhere he considers safer than the world around you.
Your shoulder hits his chest.
His arm comes around your back immediately after, locking you in.
Not loose comfort.
Containment.
The other hand presses the back of your head, tilting you in without forceful violence—but with unmistakable direction—until your face is tucked into the crook of his neck.
It happens so efficiently it feels practiced.
Like he knows exactly where you go when he decides you go there.
Your vision is gone now.
All you can see is him.
All you can smell is smoke and blood and something faintly familiar beneath it all.
Dex.
“I’ll be what you need,” he murmurs, almost like a promise to himself more than her. “If you can’t do it, I will.”
You don't move.
Don’t answer.
Somewhere inside you, something twists quietly.
Because what Dex thinks you need… feels nothing like safety.
It feels like survival shaped into a person.
And as his arms hold you tighter in the flickering neon dark, the thought returns uninvited—
the best date of your life.
And for a brief, terrifying moment…
you wonders if this might actually be it.
A.N: YAYYYYY congratulationsssssss to finallyyyyyy being able to release Log 1 and yes of course I have to start the series with an Ethel Cain song. I hope you guys enjoyed it.
Honestly, it has been quite a challenge for me to portray Dex as his authentic self while also keeping in mind the changes he’s gone through over time, especially after the events of DDBA. As you can see, Dex is different from DD S3, but I didn’t want him to become a completely different character either. I still wanted to hold onto some of his S3 traits because I will forever mourn S3 FBI Dex.😭😭😭
Small side note (hahahah not so small side note): For those who don’t understand how Dex knew Reader was going to arrive that day at the bus station, let’s just say he goes to the central bus station every day, check all the times the buses from Florida would arrive and go wait there at the arrival times everyday cause in his delusional mind, he got no doubt on reader coming back to New York, as soon as she received his letter.
But don't pity him girls, I bet OC!reader bought a one way ticket as soon as she got the letter so it’s not like he was waiting days on end for her.
Furthermore, Reader doesn’t know anything about Dex going to jail for killing Foggy or anything like that. In her mind, she believes he simply escaped from the psych ward, which is also what he told her in the letters when he got out.
Also I hope you guys noticed that Dex and Reader aren’t being fully honest with each other. From Dex’s side, it’s more obvious with the lying, but from OC!Reader’s side it might be a bit harder to see since you don’t get to read all their letters. But I can say she also doesn’t tell him the whole truth about her life away from Dex. She might even be lying at times in the letters, so Dex is only getting an illusion of her, not the full truth.
They both kind of performing the idea of a relationship in order to make it work… so is it really a relationship if both people are maintaining an illusion??? Guess we’ll find out in the next Log hehehe
PS: I think I just got the ao3 writer's curse my parents are going through a divorce. My mom and I are going to move to a new city because of this soon so I don’t think I will be able to update the sequel periodically as I wish to. Writing is the only thing keeping me up everyday and now, my life is so much of a mess that I struggle to even make room for it.
Anyways..Fuck my fuckass chungas life. I hope to see you guys soon though, peace ✌️😊.
You and Dex enter the theatre just as the lights dim fully across the room.
“Oh, shit—we’re late,” Dex mutters quickly, tightening his grip around your hand as he leads you down the carpeted stairs.
The entire theatre glows in dark shades of crimson and gold, the stage lights flickering wildly across velvet curtains and polished instruments.
You nearly miss a step in the darkness.
Your shoulder bumps into Dex’s back as you stumble slightly, but he barely notices. Or maybe he does and is simply too excited to care.
There’s an energy in him tonight that feels strangely youthful.
Restless.
Bright.
He apologizes to the seated guests almost mechanically as the two of you shuffle past knees and handbags to reach your seats.
“Sorry.”
“Excuse us.”
“Sorry.”
The words come out practiced. Quick. Automatic.
Luckily, most of the seats around your section remain empty, so the disturbance is minimal.
When you finally sit down, Dex immediately hands you a bucket of popcorn.
You accept it anyway, resting it on your lap untouched.
Your stomach still churns unpleasantly from the bus ride, and the flashing stage lights aren’t helping much.
The last thing you want right now is food.
On stage, women dressed in black are singing something about jazz beneath blinding spotlights while drums thunder through the theatre.
Well.
At least the title makes sense.
You’ve never seen this play before.
Never really cared much for theatre either.
Even back in high school you were never one of those theatre kids who cried over musicals and memorized soundtracks.
Honestly, you’re still not entirely sure what in Dex’s mind made him think this was something you would enjoy.
Maybe he confused movies with theatre somewhere during one of your letters.
“Dex,” you whisper quietly beside him, trying not to disturb the performance. “What even is this?”
“I saw a flyer for it back at the institute.”
Institute.
That’s what he calls it now.
Not prison.
Not psych ward.
Institute.
You glance at him briefly from the corner of your eye.
“I couldn’t read most of it,” Dex continues lightly with a small chuckle. “The medication made my hands shake too much. Everything kept blurring together.”
He says it so casually.
Like it’s merely an embarrassing memory instead of something deeply unsettling.
Something about that makes unease settle heavier in your chest.
If the institution had truly fixed him—truly reached whatever inside him was broken—he wouldn’t speak about it this freely.
This detached.
“But I remember the poster,” he says. “Big red letters. Dancing girls. Lots of stars.”
The stage erupts suddenly with loud brass instruments and pounding drums, cutting him off entirely.
Audience members around you burst into applause and whistles as the dancers scatter dramatically into the wings.
Beside you, Dex claps too.
Enthusiastically.
A bright smile pulling across his face.
To anyone else, he would look genuinely entertained.
Normal.
Like any other man bringing his girlfriend to a Broadway show.
But you know him.
Even after seven years apart, you still know him.
And because you know him, you can see it immediately.
Dex doesn’t actually care about the performance.
Not really.
He isn’t clapping because he loves the music.
He’s clapping because everyone else is.
Because for once he gets to feel part of something larger than himself.
Part of the crowd.
Part of the collective laughter and applause and noise.
Maybe that alone is enough to make him happy.
Maybe after years trapped inside his own mind, imitation has become its own form of comfort.
The realization softens something quietly inside you.
Maybe he really is getting better.
Maybe whatever war has always existed inside his head has finally settled into something gentler.
Even if only through borrowed emotions.
You rest your head carefully against his shoulder.
Your fingers slide slowly into his larger hand across the armrest, intertwining with his rougher fingers.
Dex immediately stills.
You feel it happen beneath your touch.
He looks down at you almost unexpectedly, like the affection catches him off guard despite everything the two of you have survived together.
A small smile rests against your mouth as you watch the stage lights flicker across the theatre.
Dex stares at you for another second.
Then slowly—
he mirrors the smile back.
It worked.
The thought settles warmly inside him.
Not the show.
Not the music.
This.
The date.
The closeness.
The carefully constructed normalcy of it all.
Because somewhere deep inside himself, Dex still believes love can be maintained through moments like these.
Curated moments.
Good moments.
That if he can build enough ordinary happiness around you carefully enough—
you’ll stay.
As the play continues, you eventually find yourself laughing at certain moments despite yourself.
Quiet laughs.
Small ones.
The kind that slip out accidentally before you can stop them.
Beside you, Dex laughs too.
You can feel it through the subtle shaking of his shoulders beneath your cheek. Hear it in the breathy sound leaving him.
A laugh that sounds just slightly delayed.
Slightly practiced.
But that’s alright.
For now, it’s enough.
Enough for you to pretend there’s something genuine about this moment.
Then the next act begins.
The stage melts suddenly into violent shades of neon pink and purple, but mostly—
Blue.
Bright.
Oppressive.
Cold blue light spills across the theatre like police sirens flooding through a dark apartment window.
Something in the atmosphere shifts immediately.
You notice it at once.
But strangely, no one else around you seems bothered.
“He had it coming~”
The women on stage sing sharply in unison.
Oh.
Your body tenses instinctively.
Without thinking, you pull slightly away from Dex’s shoulder.
Beside you, Dex notices immediately.
“You alright?” he murmurs quietly.
You glance up at him and force a small nod.
Dex studies your face for another second, clearly unconvinced.
But for once—
he doesn’t push further.
And you’re grateful for it because if he asked what was wrong, you honestly wouldn’t know how to explain it.
The music suddenly feels too loud.
The dancing blurs together beneath the flashing lights.
Everything is blue.
Too blue.
“I took the gun off the wall and fired two warning shots…”
The actress pauses dramatically.
“…into his head.”
The audience erupts into laughter.
Even Dex laughs.
You turn toward him immediately in disbelief.
Why would he—
Of course he would.
What does he understand about fear?
About normal fear?
About the kind that settles into your bones and never really leaves?
Your gaze drops quickly toward your lap instead.
The popcorn bucket sitting there is half empty.
You blink at it in confusion.
You don’t remember eating any of it.
Dex probably fed you pieces absentmindedly while watching the show.
The realization makes your chest tighten strangely.
Oh God.
Dex.
Suddenly a memory crashes violently into your mind.
Your hands shaking around the grip of Dex’s gun. The barrel pressed against his forehead. Blue city lights flashing through the windows of your cramped studio apartment. Dex hovering over you on the bed while you held the weapon between the two of you.
Yet somehow—
despite the gun—
he had looked less afraid than you.
“He had it coming~”
The lyrics echo again.
What would’ve happened if you pulled the trigger?
Even accidentally.
What if—
BANG.
The sharp sound of percussion explodes through the theatre.
In your mind you see it instantly.
Dex collapsing backward against your teddy-bear sheets.
Blood spreading beneath his head in thick red warmth.
A smoking hole between his brows.
His eyes empty.
Still.
Lifeless.
Would he have looked different dead?
Or would he have looked exactly the same as he did that night when he whispered—
Shoot me.
BANG.
You flinch violently.
But this time—
the sound isn’t part of the play.
The audience screams.
Actors freeze mid-performance.
Someone drops something metallic backstage with a loud clatter.
“Party’s over! Nobody fucking move!”
A rough male voice cuts through the theatre.
Your head snaps toward the entrance.
AVTF soldiers.
Fully armed.
At least ten of them flood into the theatre aisles in tactical gear with rifles raised.
Maybe more hidden near the exits.
Panic seizes your chest instantly.
Your eyes whip back toward Dex.
And—
he looks annoyed.
Not frightened.
Not tense.
Annoyed.
His jaw tightens slightly as he exhales through his nose like this is merely an inconvenience interrupting his evening rather than armed men arriving to kill him.
Dex gives your hand one last squeeze before leaning down slightly toward you.
“Don’t stand up,” he mutters under his breath.
Then he lets go.
Only after his hand leaves yours do you realize how damp your own palm has become.
Your eyes follow him as he rises calmly from his seat.
Too calmly.
His face settles into something unreadable as he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out—
a poker card.
Reader watches in silent panic as Dex slips the metal card between his fingers, hiding it neatly behind his hand like a magician concealing a trick.
The AVTF officers continue moving through the rows, barking at frightened civilians to show their faces. Once cleared, the civilians are shoved toward the exits in stumbling terrified waves.
“Dex?” you whisper sharply.
He doesn’t answer.
Only adjusts the poker card slightly between his fingers before glancing back down at you. And after seeing the panic written plainly across your face—
he smiles.
Softly.
Like you’re a child frightened by thunder. Like none of this is serious.
Then he turns back toward the officers with a sort of loose calmness that feels almost lazy.
The second he fully faces them, several rifles snap upward.
“It’s Bullseye!”
Bullseye.
So that’s what they call him now.
The name tears through the theatre like a spark through gasoline.
People immediately begin scrambling over seats.
Some scream.
Others shove past one another trying to reach the aisles first.
In less than seconds the theatre empties itself into chaos.
And only after everyone leaves do you realize how massive the place actually is.
Too open.
Too exposed.
You remain seated exactly where Dex told you to stay.
Your gaze lifts toward him helplessly.
Instinctively.
As if asking him what to do next.
As if he’s the solution to this.
Your savior.
And Dex notices.
Oh, he notices.
From the corner of his eye, he watches you carefully.
Watching to see if you’ll run with the others.
If you’ll abandon him now that escape is finally possible.
But you don’t.
You stay exactly where he told you to.
Still looking at him like he’s something safe.
Something trustworthy.
If only you understood how backwards that truly was.
“Hands in the air!” one of the AVTF officers barks.
A large man steps forward with his rifle raised directly at Dex. Greening tattoos crawl along the side of his exposed neck.
“Easy. Easy,” Dex replies lazily.
Not an ounce of fear in his voice.
“Get on your knees with your hands behind your back!”
Your fingers grip the armrest so tightly your nails hurt.
Your heart pounds violently against your ribs.
Please, Dex.
Please.
You don’t even know what you’re begging for anymore.
Surrender.
Run.
Don’t kill anyone.
Don’t die.
“Easyyyy, boys,” Dex drawls. “No need to get uncivil here.”
He sounds amused.
Playful.
And somehow that terrifies you more than if he had sounded angry.
“That’s Bullseye,” one of the officers mutters tensely. “Better if we just shoot him now before—”
No.
No no no.
Slowly, carefully, you move the popcorn bucket off your lap.
You bend down slightly toward your shoulder bag beneath the seat, trying not to draw attention.
Trying not to make sudden movements.
And then—
“HEY!”
You jolt violently.
Every muscle in your body locks.
The shout was directed at you.
Dex notices immediately too.
His expression changes at once.
His brow furrows sharply.
“You! Hands up and stand up,” the officer snaps. “Why’re you here? What are you, too? Bullseye’s little partner?”
You instinctively begin to rise from your seat.
But before you fully can, Dex shifts sideways in front of you slightly—
subtle.
Protective.
Blocking part of their view of you with his body.
“Ohhh, I get it now,” another officer laughs. “The bitch is his date.”
A few others snicker.
Your throat tightens instantly.
You glance up toward Dex.
And—
oh.
He’s furious.
Not loud fury.
Not explosive.
Worse.
One of his eyes twitches faintly.
His jaw clenches so tightly it looks painful.
The tendons in his neck pull taut.
Even his breathing changes.
Sharp.
Controlled.
Dangerous.
The officers continue chuckling amongst themselves.
And just when you think Dex is about to snap—
he speaks.
“Apologize.”
The entire theatre stills slightly.
You don’t even recognize his voice at first.
Too quiet.
Too cold.
“What?” one of the officers scoffs.
“Didn’t your parents teach you any manners?” Dex asks softly.
His chin tilts up slightly as he looks the AVTF officers over with slow disdain.
Like they are filthy.
Like they are beneath even the effort of hatred.
“That’s no way to address a lady.”
A few of the officers scoff immediately.
Not even remotely concerned whether you were offended or not.
One of them snorts outright.
Then finally—
“Well fuck your manners and fuck your girl.”
The officer raises his rifle higher.
Your entire body locks.
A violent tremor runs through you before you can stop it.
Then—
Dex flicks his wrist.
So casually.
So quickly.
Like tossing a frisbee.
And suddenly blood explodes everywhere.
The officer’s throat opens in a wet spray.
You don’t even process what happened at first.
One second there is a man standing there.
The next—
blood paints the theatre walls.
The velvet seats.
The gold vintage lamps.
Red splattering across everything in violent streaks.
The officer collapses choking.
And only then—
CLING.
The poker card lands perfectly against the backrest beside your chair.
Its sharpened edge embedded deep into the fabric.
A joker card.
Metal.
Bloody.
Standing there proudly like it’s admiring its own work.
Oh God.
One of the surviving officers immediately opens fire in blind panic.
Gunshots erupt through the theatre.
You instinctively slap both hands over your ears with a startled cry—
“Get down!”
Dex grabs you violently by the arm and yanks you into the aisle floor.
Your body hits the carpet hard as Dex shields you beneath him instantly.
Rifle shots tear through the theatre above you.
Wood splinters.
Seats rip apart.
Plaster cracks from the walls.
Your entire body shakes uncontrollably beneath the noise.
Dex lets out an irritated growl.
Not frightened.
Annoyed.
Like someone interrupted him mid-conversation.
He reaches beneath his jacket and you catch the flash of steel.
A knife.
Wait—
has he been carrying that this whole time?
Without even looking over the seats—
Dex throws it.
A single movement.
Then—
THUD.
A horrible wet choking sound follows.
Something heavy collapses.
Silence.
No more gunfire.
No screaming.
No ragged breathing.
Just silence settling over the theatre again like dust.
Your ears ring violently.
Your chest rises too fast.
Everything smells like gunpowder and blood and old carpet.
“I’m sorry.”
Dex’s voice breaks through the noise in your head.
It takes you a second to focus on him.
He’s still above you.
Still covering you.
Still so close that there is almost no air left between your bodies.
The flickering theatre lights carve his face into shifting fragments.
Light.
Shadow.
Light again—like he is changing every time you blink.
The softness from earlier is gone. Replaced by something edged and alert, a kind of controlled focus that makes him look less like a person and more like something designed for motion in the dark.
His breath is warm against your skin.
You can feel it.
Every inhale, every exhale, brushing faintly across your cheek and throat.
You become painfully aware of how completely he has you contained in this position—how his arms frame you without actually restraining you, how his body shields yours from everything beyond him.
But it doesn’t feel like protection in the way it should.
Not entirely.
Because you can feel everything else too.
Your body doesn’t know where to go.
The pressure of his weight hovering just above you.
The shift of his thighs against yours when he adjusts his balance.
The faint brush of his stomach against your lower body when he leans closer without thinking.
The heat of him—everywhere.
Your mind doesn’t either.
It’s wrong.
You know it’s wrong.
Bodies on the floor nearby. Blood somewhere you can’t bring yourself to look at. Screams that ended too quickly. A theatre that should be full of applause but isn’t.
And still—
your awareness narrows until there is only him.
Dex blinks down at you, eyes scanning your face like he’s trying to read something invisible there.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, softer this time. “I couldn’t get him to apologize.”
You stare at him.
“He shouldn’t have called you a bitch.”
Like that is what mattered most in the room.
Like that is what he needed to fix.
A distant shout echoes from outside the theatre halls.
“FIND HIM! HE’S IN ONE OF THE LEFT ROOMS!”
Dex exhales through his nose, irritated, almost bored by it.
His forehead drops briefly against your shoulder.
The contact makes your whole body jolt—not because it’s violent, but because it’s intimate in a way that feels entirely misplaced against everything else happening around you.
You feel it immediately.
The weight of him leaning into you like it is natural.
Like this is where he belongs.
Like the world outside doesn’t exist unless he chooses to acknowledge it.
Your breath catches without permission.
Dex doesn’t react to your tension. Or maybe he does, and simply doesn’t interpret it as anything important enough to stop.
“Right,” he mutters, almost annoyed now, as if remembering a chore he left unfinished. “Forgot about that.”
He lifts his head slightly, still hovering over you, still close enough that you cannot fully escape the awareness of him even if you wanted to.
His gaze drops to your face again.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says, calmer now. “So we can continue the date, okay?”
Before you can even respond—
BANG.
The theatre doors slam open again.
Without wasting another second, Dex stands abruptly.
More knives flash out from beneath his navy jacket.
And before you can even process what he’s doing—
he throws them toward the theatre entrance.
The sound cuts sharply through the air.
A whistle.
Then—
THUD.
THUD.
THUD.
Wet impacts follow immediately after.
Then choking.
Horrible guttural choking.
The sound of men trying to breathe through blood flooding their throats.
Gunfire erupts again, but messy this time.
Desperate.
Panicked.
Bullets tear uselessly through plaster walls and velvet seats more than anything else.
A dying reflex.
Then silence falls once more.
You barely have enough time to grab your shoulder bag off the theatre floor before Dex’s hand is back around your arm.
“Come on. We have to go now.”
His voice is rushed this time.
Urgent.
Dex drags you up the carpeted stairs and out of the theatre room.
Outside—
chaos.
Pure chaos.
People shove through the hallways screaming.
Children cry somewhere nearby.
AVTF officers try forcing themselves against the currents of fleeing civilians like men swimming upstream.
Dex scans the area quickly.
Sharp.
Focused.
Then suddenly—
he spots the fire exit.
You recognize the exact moment an idea forms in his head.
“This way.”
His grip shifts from your arm down to your hand as he pulls you through the crowd.
You clutch your shoulder bag tightly against your chest while stumbling after him.
Your shoulder slams accidentally into strangers.
Someone in glittering theatre makeup crashes against you briefly—
maybe one of the actresses.
You aren’t even sure anymore.
Everything has blurred together into melting colors and moving shapes.
The only thing solid is the hand gripping yours.
The only thing steady is Dex ahead of you.
Pulling you through the ocean of bodies before the crowd can swallow you whole.
Dex reaches the fire exit first.
He pushes the door open carefully—
then immediately—
SCREEEEEEEEEE.
The fire alarm erupts through the building.
Dex freezes.
Then groans.
“Fuck me.”
“THERE! THERE HE IS!”
An officer’s voice cuts through the panic.
Without hesitation, Dex yanks you through the fire exit door with him before the officers can force their way through the crowd.
The stairwell echoes violently with alarms.
Dex rushes you down the flights so fast your feet barely touch half the steps.
At one point you swear your body actually floated.
Your lungs burn trying to keep up.
Finally—
the ground floor.
Dex shoves the exit door open hard before pushing you through first.
Cold air hits you immediately.
Night.
You’re behind the theatre now.
An alleyway.
The sky above is dark already, and humid summer air clings cool against your skin in that distinctly New York way.
Dex slips out behind you before slamming the exit shut again.
Nearby barrels scrape loudly against the pavement as he drags them over to block the door.
Temporary.
You both know it won’t hold long.
But maybe enough.
Just enough to buy time.
Dex braces another barrel against the handle with a grunt of effort when—
“Dex.”
Your voice comes out small.
Half panic.
Half dread.
“What?” he asks distractedly, turning back toward you.
You’ve already raised your hands slightly.
Eyes wide.
Staring past him.
Dex follows your gaze.
And—
there they are.
Five rifles.
Five men.
All aimed directly at you and Dex.
“Hands behind your heads,” one orders coldly.
“And get on your fucking knees.”
For a single awful second, your body refuses to move. Your thoughts snag somewhere between panic and disbelief. The metallic smell of blood still clings to the back of your throat from the theater. Your ears are ringing so badly you can barely hear your own breathing.
Beside you, Dex goes still.
Not frightened.
Not cornered.
Still in the way predators go still before they strike.
You glance at him and immediately realize he’s calculating.
His eyes flick once across the alley.
Distance.
Angles.
Cover.
Guns.
Escape routes.
The trajectory of bullets before they’ve even been fired.
“DROP TO THE GROUND!” one of the officers shouts.
Your pulse spikes violently.
You almost do it too.
Almost.
Because what other option is there?
But Dex—
Dex remains calm.
Too calm.
Like the heavy silence before lightning splits the sky apart.
Slowly, he steps in front of you.
Not enough to draw attention to it. Not enough for anyone else to notice.
But you notice.
That slight shift of his body placing you behind him.
Shielding you.
Instantly every rifle redirects toward his chest.
Dex raises his hands slightly.
Not surrendering.
Negotiating.
“I SAID—”
“Easy,” Dex cuts in smoothly. “Nobody needs to get hurt.”
His voice is steady. Controlled. Firm in that distinctly authoritative way that makes people listen before they realize they are.
“As you can see,” he continues calmly, “my hands are visible. No sudden movements. No need to draw weapons this aggressively.”
The officers hesitate.
Just for a second.
And you see it immediately.
Rookies.
Not hardened soldiers.
Not men prepared to face Benjamin Poindexter in close quarters.
Young enough that fear still shows on their faces.
Young enough that Dex can smell it.
“There’s a civilian behind me who’s injured,” Dex says, tilting his head slightly toward you. “You should lower your weapons and get her somewhere safe.”
Your brain catches on instantly.
You press a hand against your side, curling inward slightly as if in pain.
From where they stand, with the alley dim and Dex partially blocking their view, they can’t tell if you’re bleeding or not.
One of the officers tightens his grip on the rifle.
“And why the fuck would we do that?”
Dex doesn’t react to the hostility.
“I’ve got my hands raised,” he says evenly. “No weapon in reach. I can’t do anything from here. So take her somewhere safe and then detain me if that’s what you came for.”
For one dangerous moment—
it almost works.
You can see uncertainty passing between them.
A glance.
A falter.
One officer finally steps forward, slowly approaching with handcuffs drawn from his belt.
Dex watches him in silence.
Expression unreadable.
Patient.
The officer approaches cautiously, rifle lowered just enough to reach for the cuffs.
“Get on your knees.”
Dex doesn’t move.
“Get on your knees, I said—”
You feel it before it happens.
That shift.
That sudden coldness in the air.
And then—
Dex moves.
So fast your eyes barely process it.
One second the officer is standing there.
The next, Dex has him yanked backward against his chest, arm locked around his throat while ripping the rifle from his hands in the same fluid motion.
Gunfire erupts.
Three shots.
Precise.
Controlled.
Horrifyingly fast.
One officer drops.
Then another.
Then another.
Before the remaining one can even react, Dex twists the captured rifle sideways and fires again.
Headshot.
Bodies collapse onto wet pavement.
Silence crashes down afterward.
The officer trapped in Dex’s grip struggles violently, choking against Dex’s arm.
“Y/N—RUN!” Dex shouts.
The sound snaps through your paralysis.
You don’t think.
You run.
Your shoulder bag slams painfully against your side as you sprint deeper into the maze of narrow alleyways. Behind you, more gunshots explode into the night.
You don’t look back.
You can’t.
You just keep running.
You run.
You run until your lungs burn raw and your legs feel ready to give out beneath you.
The alleyways twist endlessly around you — dark brick walls, overflowing dumpsters, puddles reflecting broken neon signs. Every turn looks the same. Every shadow feels alive.
You don’t even know where you’re going anymore.
Only away.
Away from the theater.
Away from the blood.
Away from the sound of gunshots still echoing somewhere behind you.
Your shoes slap hard against wet pavement as you sprint around another corner—
—and immediately stop.
Three AVTF officers stand at the mouth of the alley.
Their heads snap toward you instantly.
Maybe it’s the panic written all over your face.
Maybe it’s the way you freeze like prey caught in headlights.
Maybe fear simply has a scent men like them know how to follow.
“Hey, you—”
You bolt before they can finish.
“STOP!”
You run deeper into the alley.
Wind tears past your ears. Your shoulder bag smashes painfully against your side as you sprint. You nearly slip on slick pavement, crashing hard into a stack of trash cans.
Metal clatters violently.
“Fuck—”
“HEY! STOP RIGHT THERE!”
You shove yourself upright and keep running.
Faster.
Faster.
Don’t look back.
Don’t think.
Just run.
Then—
dead end.
A chain-link fence blocks the alley completely.
Your stomach drops.
No.
No no no—
You rush forward immediately, grabbing at the fence and trying to climb, fingers slipping through cold metal wire—
Footsteps.
Too close.
You whip around.
Only one officer.
Where did the others go?
The officer slows as he approaches, rifle still lowered but ready.
“Lady,” he says carefully, breathing slightly heavy from the chase, “I need you to show me identification.”
You stare at him blankly.
Identification?
For a second the words don’t even register.
“ID card, miss,” he repeats more impatiently.
Right.
Right.
Your hands shake violently as you unzip your shoulder bag.
The officer watches cautiously.
You look inside.
Pause.
And then fear does something ugly to people.
Something irrational.
Your hand closes around cold metal.
You pull it out suddenly—
A gun.
Heavy.
Solid.
Freezing cold in your trembling grip.
You aim it directly at him.
The officer immediately stiffens.
“Woah—woah, easy.”
His rifle lowers slightly, but both of you know his weapon would tear through you long before you could even pull the trigger properly.
“Miss, don’t do anything stupid,” he says carefully. “Just drop the gun.”
“I just—”
Your voice breaks.
Your breathing turns ragged.
“I just want to go home.”
The gun shakes badly in your hands.
“I just—LET ME GO!”
“Yeah,” the officer says slowly. “Yeah, and we will. Just…”
His eyes drag over you.
Your shaking arms.
Your terrified expression.
The fact you barely even know how to hold the weapon.
And suddenly you realize—
he doesn’t think you’re dangerous.
Just scared.
“What the hell am I doing…” he mutters quietly to himself.
Then louder:
“Fine. Just go.”
You blink at him.
The officer jerks his head toward the street beyond the alley.
“There was an attack at the theater. You need to get outta here before another unit finds you. Some of them won’t let you off with a slap on the wrist, alright?”
Your arm lowers slowly.
He’s…
letting you go?
You stare at him in stunned disbelief.
The officer gives you one last assessing glance before finally turning away.
“Wait—sir, I—”
THUD.
The officer stops mid-step.
Your heart drops instantly.
Slowly—
slowly—
his body collapses forward onto the pavement.
A large throwing knife protrudes cleanly from the back of his skull.
Blood spills dark across the wet concrete.
Your breath catches violently.
“Oh my god.”
Your back slams against the chain-link fence with a metallic rattle. One hand flies over your mouth as your eyes lock onto the body twitching weakly on the ground.
Dead.
He’s dead.
Oh god—
Then—
movement.
From the darkest corner of the alley, someone slowly emerges.
At first, all you can make out is the shape of them. Tall. Broad shouldered. A figure dressed head to toe in black tactical gear that seems to swallow what little light exists in the narrow alleyway.
The neon sign hanging above a nearby liquor store buzzes violently, flickering blue against wet pavement, and each flash illuminates the stranger in broken pieces.
Black gloves.
Heavy boots.
A mask.
Your breath catches in your throat.
The man steps fully into the dim neon wash and pauses beside the fallen officer.
He looks down at the body.
Not shocked.
Not angry.
Not even pleased.
Just… assessing.
Like a hunter inspecting something already dead.
The knife protruding from the back of the officer’s skull glints silver-blue beneath the neon light. Blood continues spilling slowly across the pavement, winding between cracks in the concrete like dark ink.
The masked man barely reacts to it.
That scares you more than the body itself.
Panic crashes over you all at once.
Your hands jerk upward on instinct, raising the gun again with trembling arms.
The metal feels impossibly heavy now.
Cold.
Unfamiliar.
A frightened little noise escapes from the back of your throat as you shove yourself harder against the chain-link fence behind you. The metal rattles violently from the impact.
The sound snaps the stranger’s attention toward you immediately.
His head whips around.
And then—
his eyes widen.
Fast.
Almost startled.
Without hesitation, he reaches up and tears the mask off.
It’s Dex.
“Baby—”
His voice comes out sharp with relief.
“Baby, it’s me.”
He steps over the officer’s corpse without even glancing down again. The body might as well be discarded trash littering the alley floor for all the attention he gives it.
“It’s me, doll.”
The closer he gets, the softer his voice becomes.
And traitorously—
your body responds to it instantly.
The panic in your chest loosens just enough for your gun to lower shakily toward the ground.
A broken hiccup escapes you instead.
Your entire body trembles from the adrenaline finally catching up.
You don’t know if you want to scream.
Cry.
Throw up.
Collapse.
Dex reaches you in seconds.
His hands immediately cup your face.
Warm.
Rough.
Grounding.
He tilts your head upward carefully, forcing your gaze onto him.
Only then do you truly look at him.
His hair is damp with sweat, strands sticking messily to his forehead. There’s blood smeared along the collar of his body suit— not all of it his. His chest rises and falls harder than before, breath uneven from running and fighting and killing.
But his eyes—
his eyes are fixed entirely on you.
Searching.
Worried.
And suddenly you become horribly aware of it.
For all the violence he commits without blinking—
for every body he leaves behind—
for every near death situation he walks into like it’s routine—
this is what terrifies him.
You.
The thought of losing you.
Watching you unravel right in front of him.
“Baby?” he asks quietly.
Uncertainly.
The uncertainty almost unsettles you more than the bloodshed.
Like for one brief moment, Benjamin Poindexter genuinely doesn’t know what to do.
Like he’s afraid you’re slipping somewhere he can’t follow.
“Ben…” you finally whisper.
Your voice shakes so badly it barely sounds like your own.
But the moment he hears his name from your mouth, something in him visibly softens.
Relief floods his features so fast it almost looks painful.
Then suddenly he’s pulling you against him.
Hard.
Your back hits the chain-link fence with a metallic clatter, the cold wires biting painfully through your clothes, but Dex’s body immediately cages the discomfort away.
Heat.
Pressure.
Strength.
He presses against you fully, arms wrapped tight around your body like he’s trying to force you back into one solid piece.
“I thought I lost you there,” he says breathlessly against your temple.
And then he laughs.
A small shaky laugh.
Like the thought itself sounds absurd now that he has you physically in his arms again.
You feel his heartbeat immediately.
It’s not calm.
Not steady.
It’s loud through his chest where it presses into you—fast, forceful, alive in a way that feels almost aggressive in its relief.
His hands tighten once at your back, not painful, just… certain. Like he is making sure your shape stays real under his fingers.
Then his mouth is on you.
First your temple.
A lingering kiss there, as if marking the fact that you are here.
Then your cheek.
Slower this time. More deliberate. The kind of kiss that feels less like affection and more like confirmation.
Then the bridge of your nose.
A brief pause between each one, like he is collecting proof of you piece by piece.
Like if he stops touching you, you might disappear again.
His breathing is uneven against your skin. Warm. Too close.
And each kiss drags you further into the sensation of him—into the smell of him, the heat of him, the way his grip never loosens even when he’s trying to be gentle.
It mirrors something you’ve done before.
The thought hits you sharply.
Back at the theatre counter.
When you kissed him without thinking—reckless, playful, trying to pull him into something light, something human, something that didn’t belong to violence or fear or history.
Back then, it made him laugh.
Made him stumble.
Made him feel young for a second.
And now—
he is doing the same thing back to you.
But it lands differently.
Wrong timing. Wrong place. Wrong reality pressing in from all sides.
Because there is still blood nearby.
Still a body on the ground only a few feet away.
Still the metallic, sick-sweet smell of it in the humid air.
Still the echo of gunfire that hasn’t fully left your bones.
Dex doesn’t register any of that the way you do.
His world has already narrowed again—to you, your face, your breath, your presence in his arms.
His mouth lingers at the corner of your lips.
Close enough now that you can feel every slight movement when he breathes in.
He tilts his head just enough to close the final distance.
And this time—
you turn away.
It isn’t dramatic.
It isn’t forceful.
It’s instinct.
A small shift of your face, breaking the alignment before it can happen.
Dex stops immediately.
Instantly.
Like something inside him hits a wall.
His lips hover near your skin for half a second longer, suspended in uncertainty, before he slowly pulls back.
Not letting go of you.
Never letting go of you.
But pulling his face away just enough to see yours clearly.
Confusion flickers across him first.
Real confusion. Not performance. Not calculation.
He studies you carefully, eyes moving across your expression like he is trying to solve a problem that suddenly stopped following rules.
Why you pulled away.
Why your body feels rigid in his arms now instead of soft.
Why your gaze isn’t meeting his anymore.
Then his eyes shift.
Just slightly.
Past his shoulder.
Toward the alley floor.
Toward the officer’s body.
The knife still embedded there catches faint blue neon light from above, making the scene look almost unreal for a split second—like something staged instead of something that just happened.
And something changes in Dex’s face.
Not guilt.
Not horror.
Something more disoriented.
Almost… puzzled.
Because in his mind, the sequence is simple.
That is what protection is supposed to look like.
He saw threat.
He removed threat.
He kept you safe.
So why are you shaking?
Why does your breathing sound uneven?
Why do you look like the danger didn’t end when it was supposed to?
And most importantly—
Why does it feel like you are farther away from him now than when the knife was still in motion?
Summary: Seven years after fleeing New York, Y/N is pulled back into Benjamin Poindexter’s orbit after receiving a letter she hoped would never come.
C.W: dead dove adjacent themes, toxic romance, unhealthy attachment, co-dependency, obsessive behavior, violence, gore, blood, gun violence, murder, psychological instability, trauma responses, manipulation,
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♰╰♯₊⊹Masterlist♰╰♯₊⊹
Nico Alpine.
Most folks around here called him Old Nick. Others preferred less charitable names — washed-up drunk, trailer bastard, good-for-nothing piece of shit. Nico never cared enough to correct either of them.
He was the sort of man people took one look at and immediately understood. The kind who lived paycheck to paycheck, working just enough for the day’s meal and whatever cheap liquor waited for him by sundown. The kind of man who spent his twenties believing consequences were things that happened to other people, only to wake up in his late forties drowning in every single one.
Florida had been home for three and a half years now, ever since he skipped out of Louisiana after an armed robbery case turned ugly.
That was the funny thing about America. One state wanted your head mounted on a wall, but drive a few hundred miles over and suddenly you were just another tired bastard buying cigarettes at a gas station.
God bless America.
Every evening, Nico found himself drifting back to the same bar near the edge of town. Not because it was good. Christ, the place looked like a tropical storm had blown through a souvenir shop and died there. Dust clung to the faded Hawaiian decorations, neon signs flickered half-dead against nicotine-yellow walls, and the ceiling fans spun with the slow misery of old men on life support.
But the drinks were cheap.
And the music—
The music did something strange to him.
Even songs he had never heard before carried the ache of memory. They crawled under his skin like old ghosts, filling him with a nostalgia for places he’d never been and people he probably never knew. Sometimes he stayed hours longer than he intended just listening to it hum through the dark.
And then, of course, there were the girls.
In nearly four years of drinking there, Nico had only ever seen the same three workers: two women behind the counter and some scrawny teenage boy who waited tables.
Evan. Elton. Something like that.
Nico could never remember names properly once the whiskey settled into his bloodstream, though he vaguely recalled the kid mentioning he’d come all the way from New York to stay with one of the girls.
Why the hell would anybody leave New York for this dump? Nico had asked once while the boy half-dragged him out the door after closing.
The kid only shrugged.
“Family stuff.”
Family stuff.
Funny thing was, none of them looked remotely related. Different faces. Different accents. Different manners. If they were family, they had to be the kind connected through old divorces, remarriages, and secrets nobody bothered explaining.
“A whiskey on the rocks, doll.”
Nico shot the redhead a lazy wink as she approached.
Now she was a mean little thing.
He could tell just from the dyed crimson hair, the cigarette-burn voice, and the way she slammed glasses onto the counter hard enough to crack teeth. The type of woman who’d stab a man before letting him touch her wrong.
Nico liked that.
His gaze drifted past her toward the other bartender polishing glasses near the sink.
Quiet girl.
Pretty in a way that was difficult to explain. Plain at first glance, almost forgettable, but not really. She looked like the sort of woman people trusted too easily — the nice girl, the harmless one, the kind you’d proudly bring home to your mother without thinking twice.
But there was something else underneath.
Something that made Nico keep looking.
She had the kind of face you’d someday see printed on missing posters stapled to telephone poles, smiling softly beneath the word DISAPPEARED.
And somehow, that thought only made her more interesting.
Clink.
The sharp sound of glass against the counter dragged Nico’s attention back to the present.
The redhead stood before him with a whiskey on the rocks, lips pursed into something almost defensive.
“Ten bucks.”
She barely looked at him as she spoke, her attention drifting instead toward the entrance of the bar, eyes lingering there with quiet expectation. Like she was waiting for someone to stumble through the door at any second.
It was still late afternoon. Too early for the regular crowd.
Still, she kept looking.
“You waitin’ for somebody?” Nico asked before taking a slow sip of whiskey.
“No.”
Quick answer.
Then, after a pause:
“Business’s just shit lately. Barely any customers anymore. Even nights are getting slow.”
“Probably because of that new dive two blocks down,” Nico said with a dry chuckle. “Heard the girls there dance on countertops between serving drinks.”
That earned him a vicious scowl.
“Fuck that place. Their drinks are overpriced and watered down anyway.” She snatched up a rag and wiped the counter harder than necessary. “Bet half those girls came straight outta strip clubs and still don’t know how to mix a proper drink.”
Nico barked out a laugh.
For a pretty woman, Marisa had an impressively filthy mouth. Mean enough to make even a bad day entertaining.
His eyes drifted toward the other bartender sitting near the corner of the bar.
She was reading again.
Nico found her like that almost every time the place got quiet — perched on a stool with some different book in her hands, completely detached from the world around her. She never seemed bored exactly. Just elsewhere.
It stirred something strange in him.
Not desire.
Not really.
Something closer to protectiveness.
Like seeing a church candle burning in the middle of a hurricane.
“Marisa, right?” Nico asked.
Marisa gave him a sidelong glance that practically said what the fuck do you want now?
“Right,” Nico muttered. “So how come after three and a half years, getting your name was easier than getting hers?”
He tilted his head slightly toward the girl with the book.
Marisa followed his gaze.
For the briefest moment, something in her expression softened when she looked at the other woman. It vanished almost instantly, hardening again the second she looked back at Nico.
“Because she ain’t your business, Nic.”
“Ah.”
Nico nodded slowly, pretending like he’d just uncovered some profound mystery instead of getting shut down.
Marisa saw straight through the act.
“So you’re really not gonna tell me anything about her?” he pressed. “C’mon. Help an old man indulge a little curiosity.”
Marisa laughed once — sharp and humorless.
“Oh, trust me. You don’t wanna be curious about her.”
That caught his attention.
“And why’s that?”
Marisa leaned forward onto the counter, folding her arms beneath her chest. The movement pushed her low-cut top tighter against her body, enough to briefly derail Nico’s train of thought entirely.
For a second, he almost forgot the conversation.
Could’ve sat there all evening with a whiskey in hand just admiring the view.
Then Marisa spoke.
“Because Miss Goody Two-Shoes over there?” she said softly.
A pause.
“Her boyfriend’s a killer.”
That made Nico blink.
Not fear.
Confusion.
His eyes snapped back to Marisa, trying to decide whether she was bullshitting him. But there was something unsettling in her face now — amusement sharpened into something almost predatory. A glint in her eyes that sent an unpleasant chill crawling beneath his skin.
Then she leaned back.
And it vanished.
Like it had never been there at all.
“You want another?” she asked flatly.
Nico glanced down.
His glass was already empty.
“Yeah,” he muttered.
Marisa poured him another drink.
Almost unconsciously, his gaze drifted back toward the quiet bartender.
Only this time—
She was already looking at him.
The book rested open in her lap, forgotten.
Her eyes were dark. Not just in color, but in depth. Endless in a way that made Nico feel suddenly, irrationally small. Like she belonged somewhere far beyond this rotting little bar and everyone inside it.
Something ancient wearing the shape of a woman.
Then she looked back down at her book.
Just like that.
And somehow, after what Marisa had said, the idea of her loving a killer no longer sounded unbelievable at all.
“I’m heading down to the post office.”
You say it while stacking the last of the clean glasses away after helping Marisa unload the dishwasher.
Marisa leans against the kitchen counter at the back of the bar, cigarette tucked between two fingers, expression twisting into something almost disapproving.
“What if the place gets busy tonight?”
You glance at her with a small knowing smile.
“It’s Wednesday,” you say. “I don’t think anybody’s exactly dying to spend their evening here.”
Marisa folds her arms.
“You’re just gonna make a fool of yourself going all the way down there only to come back empty-handed.”
Your smile fades slightly.
Dex hasn’t written in two months.
Two entire months without a single letter.
In seven years, that had never happened before.
Benjamin Poindexter was not the type of man who disappeared quietly. Even from inside a psychiatric ward, he always found ways to write to you. Sometimes about meaningless things — his daily routine, the food, the weather outside his window. Sometimes about his progress. Sometimes about the lack of it.
Sometimes he wrote about you.
Or rather, what little pieces of you remained inside his fractured memory.
Every now and then, he’d send drawings folded between the letters. Uneven sketches done with trembling hands. You never told him they looked bad.
You knew why they did.
The pills, the medications he’s under. It makes it harder to be himself, to even be in his own body let alone be in his own mind.
The shakiness in his handwriting had worsened over the years. Words occasionally tangled together into unreadable messes. Sentences drifted apart midway through thought, as if his mind lost the path before reaching the end.
Sometimes the letters barely made sense at all.
But he still wrote.
And somehow, that mattered more than the contents themselves.
Because writing meant there was still something connecting the two of you.
A thread stretched thin across states and years and locked doors.
Loose.
Fragile.
But still there.
“I sent him a letter last week,” you say quietly as you untie your apron. “I just wanna know if he received it. Or maybe something happened with the mailing address.”
Marisa watches you carefully.
“Maybe,” she says after a moment, “he just doesn’t wanna write anymore.”
You pause.
“Maybe he finally realized leaving you alone was the decent thing to do.”
You hang the apron beside the kitchen door.
But you already know that isn’t true.
“Dex isn’t like that,” you say simply. “He wouldn’t just stop.”
The firmness in your voice ends the conversation there.
Thankfully, Marisa has never been the kind of person to pry.
That’s one of the reasons you’ve managed to stay here as long as you have.
She never corners you with questions. Never demands explanations for the things you refuse to speak about. She simply accepts whatever pieces of yourself you choose to hand over and leaves the rest untouched.
Most people can’t resist digging.
Marisa never does.
And maybe that’s why living beside her never feels suffocating.
“Fine,” Marisa mutters eventually. “At least wait till Elton gets back.”
Almost immediately after she says it, the kitchen door swings open.
Elton walks in with one wired earbud hanging from his ear, sandy blond hair loosely tied back and cheeks pink from the Florida heat.
His eyes flick between you and Marisa.
“Am I late?”
You smile instantly.
Opening your arms, you pull him into a hug, and Elton returns it with the same easy warmth he always does.
“No,” you tell him. “Right on time.”
You press a quick kiss against his cheek before pulling away.
Elton immediately ducks his head, embarrassed.
Over the last four years, he has become something impossible to properly define. Not quite a younger brother. Not quite a son.
Something in-between.
After running away from the Lyndhurst Home for Boys shortly after turning fifteen, he’d somehow ended up in Florida with barely enough money to survive a week. You and Marisa had taken him in without asking too many questions.
Now he attends community college during the day and works nights at the bar.
Sometimes he cooks.
Sometimes he serves drinks.
Most of the time, he simply fills whatever empty space needs filling.
A steady hand in an understaffed little life.
“I’m heading to the post office,” you tell him, patting his shoulder gently. “Take care of Aunt Marisa for me, alright?”
Elton nods obediently.
Marisa immediately points a finger at him.
“And if I catch you giving discount drinks to college girls again, you’re dead, kid.”
That earns a laugh from both you and Marisa.
Elton groans under his breath, muttering, “I didn’t even do that,” before disappearing deeper into the kitchen.
Marisa watches him leave with obvious satisfaction.
You smile faintly at the sight before stepping out of the kitchen yourself.
The post office already waiting in the front of your mind like an unanswered prayer.
The small bell above the post office door chimed softly as you stepped inside.
The sound had become familiar over the years. Almost comforting.
For seven years now, this little building had been part of your routine — sending letters, collecting them, waiting for them.
Waiting for him.
The post office sat near the edge of the beachside town like something forgotten by time itself. Ever since newer technology and private delivery services started taking over, hardly anyone came here anymore.
The place looked abandoned some days.
Its once turquoise walls had faded into a sickly green-blue under years of salt air and sunlight. Cobwebs gathered thick in the corners if you stared long enough, and an old radio somewhere behind the counter crackled endlessly with static, hissing like the building itself was trying to breathe.
“Good evening, Miss Weaver.”
The voice pulled your attention forward.
Mr. Hofmann sat alone behind the reception counter, offering you a familiar smile.
“Good evening, Mr. Hofmann,” you greeted softly. “I’m here to pick up my mail.”
Over the years, you’d grown strangely fond of him.
Mr. Hofmann had worked in this little post office long before you were even born. He and his wife lived only a few streets away from the house you shared with Marisa and Elton, and every few weeks his wife would stop by the bar carrying blueberry pies with the excuse that she’d accidentally baked too many again.
She always stayed afterward.
Talking in hushed little whispers about neighborhood gossip like the two of you were exchanging classified government secrets.
“Ah, right. Lemme check for you.”
Mr. Hofmann pushed himself up with a groan and disappeared behind the rows of mail slots.
You waited quietly near the counter, fingers loosely intertwined.
Part of you already expected disappointment.
No letter.
Again.
You were halfway through thinking about taking a walk down the beach afterward — maybe searching for seashells near the waterline to clear your head. Purple ones were rare, but sometimes the tide got generous.
Then—
“Here we are.”
Mr. Hofmann returned holding a single envelope.
Your thoughts stopped instantly.
Because it wasn’t Dex’s usual stationery.
Not the thin yellow government-issued envelopes from the psychiatric facility.
Not the cheap paper.
Not the familiar crooked handwriting that always looked slightly unsteady across the front.
This envelope was white.
Pristine.
Almost unnaturally clean against the dusty atmosphere of the post office.
The stamp sat perfectly aligned in the corner with deliberate precision, as if whoever mailed it had taken careful time positioning every detail exactly right.
You stared at it for a second too long.
“Everything alright, miss?” Mr. Hofmann asked gently.
You blinked.
“Yeah,” you murmured quickly, taking the envelope from him. “Thank you.”
Mr. Hofmann smiled in that same grandfatherly way he always did and gave a small nod before returning behind the counter.
You stepped back outside into the humid evening air with the envelope still clutched tightly in your hand.
Unease settled quietly in your stomach.
Could it be your father?
No.
Your father would’ve called. He had your number. Writing letters was too formal for him.
One of your old friends from New York, maybe?
But who?
Anyone close enough to send a handwritten letter would’ve simply emailed you instead.
Unless—
You walk all the way to the beach before opening the letter.
Even with the envelope clenched tightly in your hand the entire time, you still can’t bring yourself to look inside it yet.
You do this often.
Whenever there’s something you don’t want to know.
Something you don’t want confirmed.
You drag it out.
Stretch the distance between yourself and the inevitable for as long as possible, pretending that ignorance can still protect you if you move slowly enough.
Your sandals sink softly into the sand once you finally reach the shoreline.
Carefully, almost ceremonially, you slip them off and hold them in one hand while the letter remains trapped in the other.
Then you keep walking.
Past the crowded areas.
Past the families packing up picnic blankets.
Past the couples lingering near the waterline.
Until eventually you find somewhere quieter.
Somewhere the world feels far enough away.
By now the sun has fully disappeared beneath the horizon, leaving streaks of violet and deep blue bleeding across the sky above the ocean. The summer heat has softened into a cooler evening breeze that slips through your hair and brushes against your skin gently.
You lower yourself onto the sand.
For a moment, you do nothing except breathe.
Salt air fills your lungs.
Waves collapse softly against the shore.
You close your eyes.
And simply exist.
You’ve always needed moments like this before reading Dex’s letters.
A pause.
A breath between worlds.
Because no matter what waited inside those envelopes, opening them always meant stepping into his mind again. Into his loneliness. Into the remnants of the man he used to be.
Most days, you needed to prepare yourself for that.
Slowly, you look back down at the envelope resting in your hands.
White.
Clean.
Too clean.
You flip it over first, searching instinctively for a return address.
There isn’t one.
Your brows pull together slightly.
That’s strange.
How does someone send a letter without listing where it came from?
A strange unease curls tighter in your stomach.
Carefully, you slide your finger beneath the flap, making sure not to tear the paper.
Then you unfold the letter inside.
Your eyes move across the page.
Once.
Twice.
And suddenly—
Your entire expression changes.
The color drains from your face so quickly it almost hurts.
“Oh my God.”
The words leave you in barely more than a whisper.
One trembling hand rises instinctively to cover your mouth.
Around you, the beach continues on like nothing has happened.
In the distance, families gather their belongings and shake sand from towels before heading home. A group of children still argue desperately for five more minutes of volleyball while their exhausted mother calls for them to leave.
A dog races across the shoreline barking wildly into the wind.
Ordinary life.
Ordinary people.
Completely unaware that your world has just tilted sideways.
That the fragile little peace you carved out for yourself here in Florida suddenly no longer feels permanent at all.
By the time you make it back home, the sky has darkened fully into night.
The little one-story house sits quietly near the edge of the neighborhood, porch light glowing faintly against peeling paint and old wood. Marisa bought the place years ago at a discount from some aging veteran looking to move north before the Florida heat finally killed him.
Before you arrived in Florida, she used to live there with her boyfriend.
At least, that’s what she called him.
The man died years before you ever met her again— killed in some biker gang mess involving drugs, brotherhood, and men too stupid to understand they were disposable.
Marisa always spoke about him like she hated him.
Hated him for dying.
Hated him for choosing a gang over a quiet life.
Hated him for leaving her behind with a bar, a house, and memories she didn’t know what to do with.
But you knew better.
Hatred like that only came from loneliness.
You couldn’t entirely relate.
If anything, you preferred your lovers far away from you.
Distance made things easier.
Distance made things survivable.
The wooden porch creaks softly beneath your footsteps as you climb the stairs, exhaustion settling into your body in a way that has nothing to do with physical tiredness.
It’s the weight of knowing.
The weight of carrying bad news inside your chest.
Your eyes immediately land on Elton sitting on the porch bench with a guitar resting across his lap.
Soft notes drift lazily through the humid night air while he absentmindedly tunes the strings.
“Oh,” you murmur, surprised. “I thought you were staying at Brian’s tonight.”
Brian.
Elton’s closest friend since moving to Florida. The two of them were practically attached at the hip now — same college, same classes, same terrible eating habits from what you’d heard.
Sometimes Elton stayed over in Brian’s dorm room whenever he had early lectures the next morning.
“No,” Elton replies without looking up from the guitar. “Tomorrow’s classes got canceled. Early summer break or something.”
The ease in which he tunes the instrument makes you a little jealous.
“Hm.” You narrow your eyes teasingly. “Did your professor actually say that, or did you decide to start summer break early?”
That finally makes Elton look up with a defensive frown.
“I’m serious,” he insists immediately. “I got the email and everything if you don’t believe me.”
The reaction catches you slightly off guard.
For a moment, you realize you can’t tease him the same way you used to when he was younger.
He’s growing up.
“Alright, alright,” you laugh softly. “I’m just saying because we both know I’m not the one handing out punishments around here.”
That earns a grin from Elton almost instantly.
Neither of you need to say Marisa’s name aloud to know who you mean.
Then Elton suddenly pauses like he’s only just remembered something.
“Oh. Aunt Marisa said she wants to see you when you get back.”
Your chest tightens slightly.
Right.
You still have to tell her.
“Yeah,” you murmur quietly. “I know.”
You step closer, gently running your fingers through Elton’s wavy blond hair before patting the top of his head affectionately.
“Don’t stay out too late.”
Elton barely reacts to the touch anymore. He simply lets you fuss over him before lowering his attention back toward the guitar resting in his lap.
The soft tune resumes as you push open the front door and step inside the house.
The letter still feeling heavy in your pocket.
The moment you step inside the house, the smell of chili hits you immediately.
Oh.
Marisa’s cooking.
You slip through the cluttered little living room without bothering to turn on the lights, making a straight line toward the kitchen.
The house is small enough that the kitchen opens directly into the rest of the space, and from where you stand you can already see Marisa by the stove, slowly stirring a pot with one hand.
She hasn’t noticed you yet.
A small, childish idea immediately sparks in your head.
You quietly kick your sandals off near the couch and begin sneaking toward her from behind, already imagining the annoyed look she’ll give you once you scare her—
“Oh, you’re back.”
Marisa turns around just before you cross into the kitchen.
You stop mid-step, disappointed.
“Well,” you sigh dramatically, “there goes my plan.”
Marisa snorts softly before turning back toward the stove.
“Yeah, yeah.”
You move closer instead, lingering beside the counter.
“Sorry I took so long,” you say carefully.
A small part of you worries she might be upset.
But Marisa only shrugs.
“It’s fine. Knew you’d be gone awhile once you said you were heading to the post office.” She glances sideways at you while continuing to stir the pot. “Lemme guess. No letter?”
Her red hair is tied up in a messy bun, makeup washed clean from her face after work. Without it, she looks softer somehow. Domestic in a way that almost doesn’t suit her sharp mouth and sharper attitude.
Like somebody’s exhausted wife.
Somebody’s mother.
You’ve always thought Marisa would’ve made a decent mother.
Not perfect.
But good.
Especially if you’d been there to help her.
“Um… yeah, about that—”
Before you can finish, Marisa scoops up a spoonful of chili and abruptly shoves it toward your mouth.
You stare at it suspiciously.
Marisa notices immediately.
“Oh, come on,” she groans. “It’s not gonna kill you.”
A laugh escapes you despite yourself.
Marisa pouts slightly at your hesitation, clearly offended by the lack of faith in her cooking abilities.
Reluctantly, you take the bite.
Then freeze.
Marisa’s eyes widen.
“Oh my God,” she says immediately. “Is it bad?”
You slowly lift your gaze toward her.
That alone tells her everything.
Marisa groans dramatically and reaches for the pot handles.
“Alright. Fine. I’ll throw the whole thing away.”
You burst out laughing, quickly grabbing her wrist before she can move the pot.
“Hey, hey— no, it’s salvageable,” you insist through your laughter. “It just needs more lime and salt.”
Marisa narrows her eyes suspiciously.
“You say that every time.”
“And every time I’m right.”
You only let go once her hands finally ease away from the stove.
“I’ll get the lime,” Marisa mutters, already walking toward the refrigerator.
The second she steps away, you slide naturally into her place at the stove.
You reach into the cabinet for salt, sprinkling some into the chili before lowering the heat slightly and stirring the pot carefully.
Behind you, the fridge door closes.
“Oh, right,” Marisa says while walking back over with sliced lime in hand. “What were you trying to say earlier?”
You take the lime from her fingers.
For a second, you consider avoiding it entirely.
Because bringing up Dex always changes the atmosphere between you two.
Like lighting a match inside a dry room.
Marisa never liked him.
Not even years ago when the two of you still worked together at the suicide prevention center. And after everything you’d eventually told her — the violence, the instability, the hospital—
Well.
Marisa had even fewer reasons to like him now.
“Did he write back?” she asks after your silence stretches too long.
Insistent.
Careful.
You stir the chili quietly after squeezing lime into the pot.
“Yes.”
The room falls silent.
Marisa’s expression tightens immediately.
You can practically see the irritation crawling up her spine before she even speaks.
“So?” she presses, voice sharper now. “What did he say?”
And somehow, even before hearing the answer, Marisa already knows it isn’t good news.
Which only makes it harder to speak.
“He’s out.”
The words leave your mouth barely above a whisper.
Like even you still haven’t fully processed them yet.
But Marisa catches it instantly.
Sharp as broken glass.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
You exhale slowly and reach over to turn off the stove before fully facing her.
“He got out,” you explain quietly. “I don’t know how. The letter came from some unknown location and there wasn’t even a return address. I don’t know how he managed to—”
“I don’t give a fuck how he mailed the letter.”
Marisa cuts you off immediately.
Her eyes lock onto yours.
“Do you know if he’s here?”
That stops you cold.
Because suddenly—
You realize you don’t know.
You don’t know where Dex is.
You don’t know how long he’s been out.
You don’t know if he’s already somewhere nearby.
And all at once, that old familiar feeling begins crawling slowly back up your spine.
Fear.
The kind you thought you buried years ago.
“Y/N?”
“I don’t know, Marisa!”
The sharpness in your own voice surprises even you.
Defensive.
Cornered.
“I don’t know if he’s here. Hell, I don’t know anything. He barely wrote anything in the letter, he just—”
Before you can finish, Marisa moves.
Fast.
One second she’s standing across the kitchen.
The next, she’s snatching the envelope halfway out of your back pocket.
“Marisa—”
You reach for it instinctively, but she’s already unfolding the letter.
The envelope gets tossed carelessly somewhere onto the kitchen counter like it means nothing.
But the actual letter—
That, she reads carefully.
Her eyes scan over the page once.
Then again.
And you visibly watch the color leave her face.
When she finally looks back up at you, her expression has hardened into something grim.
“You’re not seriously planning to go back, are you?”
You drag a tired hand over your face.
“Tell me you’re not planning to go, Y/N.”
You look away first.
Because avoiding eye contact feels easier than answering honestly.
“What other choice do I have?” you murmur. “If I don’t go, he’ll come here eventually.”
Your throat tightens.
“And I’m not letting him drag blood into this place.”
“Or,” Marisa snaps, “you could just not answer him and we leave.”
You blink at her.
“Me. You. Elton,” she continues immediately. “We’ve got enough money to move somewhere else. Elton can transfer colleges. We’ll figure out jobs.”
You turn away from her completely now, staring somewhere past the kitchen instead.
Like the suggestion itself is impossible.
“Marisa,” you sigh tiredly, “do you know how hard it was building a life here?”
“We’re not drifters moving state to state every six months.”
“And Elton…” Your voice softens slightly. “He has friends here. A future. I’m not ripping that away from him because of my problems.”
“Don’t do that.”
Marisa’s voice cuts through sharply.
“Don’t act like this is only your problem.”
You stay silent.
“It’s ours too,” she says quieter now. “You don’t get to shove us aside every single time something from your past comes back.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“No,” Marisa fires back immediately. “But it’s what it feels like.”
Her frustration spills out all at once now.
“Every time it has anything to do with whatever happened before you came here, you shut down. You stop talking. You push people away like we’re too fragile to handle the truth.”
Her eyes burn into yours.
“As if I wouldn’t understand. As if Elton wouldn’t still love you after knowing.”
You finally look back at her then.
And something inside you snaps.
“That’s exactly the problem!” you burst out.
Your voice rises for the first time all night.
“Dex can’t know!”
Silence crashes into the kitchen instantly.
You shake your head hard, already overwhelmed by the words spilling out.
“He can’t know I have anything outside of him,” you say, voice trembling now. “Anything I love. Anything that matters to me.”
Your breathing grows uneven.
“Because if he sees it— if he knows—”
You swallow hard.
“He’ll destroy all of it until he’s the only thing left in my life.”
That finally silences Marisa.
Not because you yelled.
But because part of her knows you’re right.
The kitchen falls still.
Marisa looks away first.
Then, without another word, she walks past you.
For a second you think she’s leaving.
Instead, she reaches for the cigarette pack sitting on the counter.
A match strikes.
The tiny flare of orange briefly illuminates the kitchen before smoke curls slowly into the air.
Marisa inhales deeply enough for her shoulders to rise and fall beneath the dim light.
You look away.
Toward the refrigerator instead.
Toward the collection of small magnets scattered across its surface — souvenirs gathered over years of road trips together across little towns near the Florida coast.
Tiny ordinary memories.
And suddenly, the realization hits you with painful clarity.
At some point—
Without even noticing—
This place had started feeling like home.
“Just tell me you’re not going,” Marisa says quietly.
Her voice shakes.
It’s subtle — almost easy to miss — but you don’t.
And something in your chest tightens immediately.
Seeing her like this feels wrong.
Marisa is fire. Sharp edges. Fast hands. Loud opinions. The kind of person who moves before she thinks.
But now—
She looks unsteady.
And it unsettles you more than anger ever could.
“Just…” her voice breaks slightly. “I can’t—I can’t do this without you.”
She turns to face you fully now.
Her eyes are already glassy.
“Please, Y/N… I lost everything,” she whispers. “I lost everything when Ross died. I—I don’t want to lose you too.”
“No—don’t say that.”
Your voice softens instantly.
You step closer without thinking, hands rising hesitantly to hold her arms.
Not quite a hug.
Not quite distance either.
Just something in between — something grounding.
“I’m not going to die,” you say quickly. “I’ll be fine. Dex… he won’t let anything happen to me. Whatever’s out there, I can handle it.”
Marisa doesn’t look convinced.
She can’t speak properly anymore, caught somewhere between anger and fear and grief all tangled together.
And you—
You don’t know how to fix this.
You never do when it’s this kind of emotional damage.
You used to handle crisis calls for a living. Talking people down from ledges, soothing voices shaking on the other end of a line.
That part of you knows exactly what to say.
But it only works when you’re not the source of the pain.
When it’s your fault—
When you’re the one leaving cracks in someone else’s foundation—
Everything you know how to do suddenly feels useless.
You exhale slowly and release her arms.
A decision forms quietly inside you.
Space.
That’s what she needs.
So you turn away.
You walk down the hallway without looking back, already reaching for the door to your room.
You’re almost there when—
“Do you still love him?”
Marisa’s voice stops you cold.
You don’t turn around right away.
For a moment, you just stand there in the hallway.
Half of you already inside the room.
Half of you still caught in the light spilling out from the kitchen behind her.
She looks fragile in a way you’re not used to seeing — tear-stained, standing beneath the warm light like she’s caught under a spotlight she never asked for.
And in that moment, you realize she’s not just asking.
She’s waiting.
For an answer that could either keep her standing where she is—
or collapse everything between you.
You look at her.
Really look.
Even with tears gathering at her lashes, even with her voice shaking at the edges of control—
And somehow, she still looks beautiful.
That thought makes something inside you twist painfully.
“I never said I didn’t,” you reply softly.
It isn’t a confession.
It isn’t a refusal either.
It’s the truth you can’t untangle.
Marisa’s breath catches slightly, like the words land somewhere deeper than she expected.
And you don’t stay to see what it does to her.
You only step into your room.
And close the door gently behind you.
By the time you start packing, the house has gone quiet.
Not peaceful quiet.
The kind that settles after an argument, heavy and lingering in the walls.
You kneel beside your open duffel bag, mechanically sorting through what you’ll need for New York.
Clothes.
Toiletries.
A few old documents.
Nothing sentimental.
You don’t plan on staying long anyway.
A couple of months at most.
Your old apartment is still there, untouched except for dust and time. So really, there’s no reason to overpack.
Just take what you need.
Handle the problem.
Come back.
Simple.
At least, that’s what you keep telling yourself.
You’re halfway through pulling another sweater from the closet when a soft knock sounds against your bedroom door.
You already know who it is before saying anything.
The door opens slowly.
Elton steps inside carrying a plate of chili and rice balanced carefully in his hands.
“Hey,” you say softly, offering him a tired smile.
“Hey.”
He walks over to your bedside table and places the plate carefully onto the only empty space available between books, receipts, hair ties, and loose change.
Your room has always been cluttered in a strangely organized way.
Elton glances briefly at the half-packed duffel bag sitting open beside you.
“So…” He sits down on the edge of your bed. “You’re really going back to New York?”
You stop folding clothes for a moment and look over at him.
“Yeah,” you admit quietly. “Sorry.”
Part of you expects him to react badly.
But Elton only nods slowly.
“Aunt Marisa’s crying on the kitchen floor.”
The statement is delivered so matter-of-factly that it catches you off guard.
You blink once.
The image settles unpleasantly in your chest.
But still—
You don’t move toward the door.
Instead, you quietly walk over and sit beside Elton on the bed.
Silence lingers between the two of you for a moment.
Then—
“What do you want me to bring back from New York?”
The subject change is obvious.
Elton notices immediately.
But kind enough not to force the issue, he lets you redirect the conversation.
He looks around thoughtfully for a second before answering.
“Can you get me one of those I Love NYC shirts?” he asks solemnly. “I somehow survived living there without owning one.”
A laugh escapes you instantly.
“You’re so annoying,” you mutter.
“But you’ll buy me one?”
“Sure,” you smile faintly. “If I can.”
Without thinking, your hand starts to rise toward his hair out of old habit—
Then stops halfway.
You hesitate.
Because somewhere along the years, Elton stopped being a child.
He’s taller now. Broader shoulders. Sharper jawline slowly forming beneath the softness he used to carry.
A young man.
And a good one.
You helped raise him into that.
The realization fills you with a strange ache.
You can only hope he becomes an even better man someday.
Before the thought settles fully, Elton suddenly leans forward and wraps his arms tightly around you.
The force of it nearly knocks the breath from your lungs.
“Just come back,” he mumbles quietly against your chest. “When all this is over.”
Your expression softens immediately.
Still a baby, you think fondly.
You wrap your arms around him carefully, one hand smoothing through his hair while you rock him gently.
“Of course I will,” you whisper.
Your eyes drift toward the bedroom door left half-open beside you.
The kitchen light spills faintly across the hallway floor.
You don’t know if Marisa is still sitting out there.
And if she is—
You’re not sure you can face her again tonight.
Not when your decision has already been made.
The bus station is crowded with people coming and going.
Families dragging sunburnt children through the terminal after summer vacations. Workers heading back home. College students hauling overstuffed luggage toward unfamiliar cities.
Some are arriving.
Some are leaving.
You’re not entirely sure which category you belong to anymore.
Behind you, the bus hisses loudly, engine rumbling like some restless living thing waiting to be fed another passenger.
You tilt your head up briefly toward the burning Florida afternoon sun before your attention drifts back toward Marisa and Elton.
Marisa is currently supervising the loading of your duffel bag into the luggage compartment with the intensity of a military operation.
Elton stands beside her looking profoundly bored.
The sight makes you smile despite yourself.
“No, I said put it closer to the corner,” Marisa snaps at one of the workers loading luggage beneath the bus. “Not near the edge. It’ll get crushed.”
“Lady,” the driver sighs patiently, “that is the corner.”
“And I’m telling you it’s still wrong.”
Before Marisa can continue the argument, you quickly step forward and grab her hand gently.
The driver immediately gives you a grateful look.
“It’s fine,” you assure him apologetically. “There’s nothing fragile in there. Just clothes.”
Your eyes lower briefly toward the shoulder bag hanging against your side.
“All the important stuff is with me anyway.”
Marisa notices the glance immediately.
But thankfully, she lets the matter go.
“Just make sure you check your luggage before getting off the bus,” she says instead, immediately redirecting her anxiety elsewhere. “And eat the carrots I packed before they go bad. Don’t wait until you’re starving to eat something.”
You bite back a smile.
“And when you get to New York, go to your father’s place first. Don’t disappear for three days without letting people know you arrived.”
The concern in her voice sounds painfully domestic.
Like a mother trying to pretend she isn’t terrified.
You glance sideways at Elton, who gives you an equally knowing look.
That finally makes you laugh softly.
“Don’t worry,” you tease lightly. “I’ll do exactly what you say, Mom.”
Marisa immediately glares at you.
But the corner of her mouth betrays her.
“Smartass.”
You grin.
Then her expression softens again almost instantly.
“Just… be safe.”
Her fingers tighten around your hand.
You squeeze back gently.
“I will.”
For a moment, neither of you let go.
And when you look at her properly, you can still see it there beneath the small smile she’s trying so hard to maintain—
Fear.
Sadness.
Uncertainty.
Like part of her already knows this goodbye is heavier than either of you are willing to admit aloud.
Before you can linger on it too long, Marisa looks away first and releases your hand.
You let her.
Then you turn toward Elton.
“Don’t give your aunt too much trouble while I’m gone, alright?”
You open your arms.
Elton steps into the hug immediately.
“I can’t promise that,” he mutters into your shoulder.
That earns a laugh from you and an exhausted eye-roll from Marisa, though you can still spot the amusement hidden underneath it.
You pull away just enough to ruffle Elton’s hair one last time.
Then you take a small step backward, giving the two of them one final look.
“Ciao,” you say with a small wave.
Both of them wave back.
And then you turn before staying becomes harder.
The inside of the bus smells faintly like cheap air freshener and old fabric.
You settle into a window seat facing the station.
Outside, Marisa and Elton stand side by side watching expectantly until they realize you can see them.
They wave again.
Smiling.
Trying very hard to make this feel temporary.
But there’s sadness in both their faces.
The kind people wear when they’re trying to make the last few moments count before distance swallows them whole.
And suddenly, an idea sparks inside you.
You puff out your cheeks and make the ugliest face you possibly can through the bus window.
Elton bursts into laughter instantly.
Marisa stares for half a second before laughing too — startled, like she hadn’t expected something so ridiculous from you at a moment like this.
Good.
That’s better.
The bus engine roars louder beneath you.
Then slowly—
The station begins to move.
Or maybe you do.
Marisa and Elton grow smaller behind the glass as the bus pulls away from the terminal.
Still laughing.
Still waving.
You smile faintly to yourself and lean back into the seat.
At least the last thing you saw wasn’t their sadness.
Your gaze lowers toward the shoulder bag resting tightly against your lap.
Heavy.
You know exactly why.
Your fingers curl around the strap as you exhale quietly.
You can only hope this really is just a short visit.
And that somehow—
You’ll still be able to come back home to Florida afterward.
You arrive in New York with a violent jolt.
The bus jerks to a stop hard enough to snap you awake while another passenger accidentally kicks the back of your seat trying to rush toward the exit.
For one disoriented second, panic floods through you.
You don’t know where you are.
Then—
Right.
New York.
Through the dirty bus window, you can just barely catch sight of the distant silhouette of the Statue of Liberty standing against the summer haze.
The city where dreams are supposed to come true.
Funny.
You always thought it looked more like a place that swallowed people whole.
By the time you step off the bus, your entire body aches.
Your back.
Your neck.
Your shoulders.
Hours trapped in cramped seats and recycled air have left you exhausted down to the bone. Even dragging yourself onto the pavement feels like effort.
And now you still have to navigate New York crowds looking like you just crawled out of a grave.
You exhale slowly.
Dad first.
Definitely your dad’s place first.
You already called him earlier during the ride to let him know you were coming, but you should probably call again now that you’ve actually arrived.
Maybe he could come pick you up.
Maybe he still has your truck keys from the apartment.
Maybe the two of you could stop somewhere for ice cream on the drive back like you used to.
The thought almost manages to comfort you.
Almost.
Adjusting your shoulder bag higher against your shoulder, you push through the crowded station toward the luggage compartment beneath the bus.
People shove past you from every direction.
Tourists.
Workers.
Students.
Children crying from exhaustion.
The entire station pulses with movement and heat and noise.
Eventually, you spot your bag.
Dark blue.
Slightly worn at the edges.
You haul the duffel bag out with a tired grunt and immediately regret how much you packed.
Definitely more than necessary.
The summer sun burns overhead relentlessly as you drag both bags toward the station building.
By the time you finally step beneath the shade of the terminal, sweat clings uncomfortably to the back of your neck.
You sigh in relief.
Phone first.
Then figure everything else out afterward.
You begin digging through your shoulder bag when—
“Y/N?”
Everything inside you freezes.
That voice.
Slowly—
Almost unwillingly—
You turn toward the sound.
And there he is.
Benjamin Poindexter.
Dex.
He looks older.
Not dramatically.
But enough.
The years have worn themselves quietly into his face somehow, sharpening him into something more tired around the edges. His hair is still the same. His posture still painfully straight like he’s holding himself together through discipline alone.
And his eyes—
Those green eyes—
Exactly the same.
Still looking at you like you are the center point holding his entire world in place.
But something about him feels different too.
You can’t tell what.
And somehow, that unsettles you more.
You just stand there staring.
Speechless.
Like if you blink hard enough, he might disappear.
Why is he here?
Dex’s expression changes the second recognition fully settles across your face.
His eyes widen.
His pupils dilate instantly.
And then he smiles.
Slowly at first.
Then all at once.
Relief.
Disbelief.
Something dangerously close to devotion.
He reaches you in only a few strides.
Your first instinct is to step backward.
Just slightly.
Barely noticeable.
But whether Dex ignores it or simply doesn’t care, you can’t tell.
Because the next second his arms are around you.
Tight.
Far too tight.
The force of the hug nearly crushes the air from your lungs.
For one alarming moment, you genuinely think he might break something.
But—
This is Dex.
This has always been the way he loves.
Overwhelming.
Suffocating.
Possessive in a way that leaves no room for rejection.
No room for escape.
“Is it really you?” he asks shakily against you. “Is it? God, is it really you?”
There’s fear in his voice.
Fear and hope tangled together so tightly they sound almost painful.
“Yes,” you whisper softly. “Yes, Dex. It’s me.”
Your body slowly gives in beneath his hold.
Not unlike prey finally going still beneath the jaws of something that already caught it.
Your duffel bag slips from your fingers onto the pavement as your arms eventually rise to wrap around him in return.
The second you do, Dex loosens his grip slightly—
Not enough to let you go.
Just enough to bury himself deeper against you.
His face presses into the crook of your neck as he inhales shakily, breathing you in like he’s trying to memorize the scent of you before the world steals it away again.
“God…” His voice cracks softly. “I missed this. I missed you.”
Something painful clenches inside your chest.
Because after all these years—
After all the fear and distance and silence—
The feeling never really left you either.
“I missed you too,” you admit quietly.
And there’s no guilt in the confession anymore.
You’ve carried that particular sin for so long it no longer feels worth repenting for.
The train rattles loudly beneath the tracks as it cuts through the city.
You sit beside Dex in silence, shoulder pressed against his side while the blur of New York rushes past the windows.
It feels…
Nice.
Strangely nice.
He feels bigger than you remember. Broader. Solid in a way that makes leaning against him feel almost natural now.
Or maybe you’ve simply gotten smaller over the years.
You’re not sure.
Lately it feels like age has been quietly eating away at you piece by piece. Your body thinner than before. Your face more tired around the edges.
Sitting beside Dex now only makes the changes inside yourself more noticeable somehow.
Being near him forces you to confront time.
How much you’ve changed.
How differently you think now.
Feel now.
Exist now.
You just hope it changed you for the better.
Not worse.
Your eyes drift upward toward him. And that’s when you notice the scars.
One sits through the edge of his eyebrow.
Another — newer, angrier — cuts along the side of his face, still healing.
Your expression falters slightly.
He’s been hurt.
Of course you always knew what Dex did was dangerous.
Violent.
Unstable.
But somehow, only now does it fully settle inside you that he is still mortal enough to bleed.
Your hand rises almost instinctively toward his face.
Dex glances down immediately, faint amusement flickering across his expression like he assumes you simply want his attention.
Then your fingers brush against the scar on his cheek.
And he stills.
The reaction is subtle.
But you feel it immediately beneath your fingertips.
“When did this happen?” you ask quietly.
Your voice lowers without meaning to.
Soft in that particular way reserved only for him.
“Nothing serious,” Dex replies after a moment. “Just… an accident.”
The answer comes too quickly.
Too casually.
Like he doesn’t actually want you looking too closely at whatever life he’s been living without you.
You notice.
But you let him evade it.
The unease still lingers faintly across your face though.
Your fingers continue tracing the scar carefully, almost absentmindedly, though the touch feels far too deliberate for that.
The skin there is rougher than the rest of him, uneven beneath your fingertips. A reminder that time had still happened to him even while he was locked away somewhere beyond your reach.
You follow the line of it slowly.
Across the edge of his cheekbone.
Down the sharp angle of his jaw.
The stubble there catches against your skin.
Different.
Everything about him feels different now.
Broader shoulders.
Heavier frame.
Older skin stretched over the same man you once knew too well. And yet beneath all those changes, you keep searching for something familiar.
Something that still feels like him.
Dex watches you quietly through all of it, green eyes fixed on your face with that unnerving intensity only he seems capable of.
After a while, the corner of his mouth lifts slightly.
“Why do you do that?” he asks.
“Do what?”
“This.” His eyes flick briefly toward your hand. “You touch me like you’re experimenting something.”
The observation catches you off guard enough to make you laugh softly under your breath.
“What a strange way to describe it.”
But you don’t stop.
If anything, you lean closer, resting more fully against his chest now while your fingers continue their slow wandering along the shape of his face.
Dex stays perfectly still beneath your touch.
Like he’s afraid movement might break whatever this is.
And even after seven years apart, his attention still feels the same — complete, unwavering, almost consuming whenever it settles on you.
“How did you get out?” you ask finally.
There it is.
The question sitting between both of you ever since the station.
Dex doesn’t tense.
Doesn’t hesitate.
Instead he leans slightly closer, lowering his voice conspiratorially.
“Would you believe me if I said I broke out?”
That earns the smallest smile from you.
Of course.
A man like Benjamin Poindexter was never built for cages.
No place could truly contain him except the prisons he made for himself.
“What?” you murmur teasingly. “You ripped the psych ward doors off their hinges like the Hulk?”
Dex pauses as though genuinely considering the comparison.
Then an easy smile finally pulls across his face.
“Yeah,” he says lightly. “Something like that.”
You don’t push further.
And he seems grateful for it.
Instead, you settle comfortably against him again while the train continues rumbling through the city.
Earlier, Dex mentioned he had a surprise planned for you.
Normally that sentence alone would make you nervous.
Right now though, you’re too exhausted to care properly.
All you really want is a shower.
Sleep.
Maybe twelve uninterrupted hours unconscious.
But Dex had insisted the surprise would be worth it.
You close your eyes briefly against his shoulder.
You hope he’s right.
Because you’ve never been particularly good with surprises.
Reader shifts awkwardly beside Dex at the ticket counter, fingers fidgeting against the strap of her shoulder bag while he buys the tickets with surprising ease.
“Two for Chicago.”
His voice comes smooth and casual, like this is something he does often.
Like he belongs here.
Like he isn’t a wanted man out there.
Reader glances around the theater lobby. Red velvet carpets. Golden lights. Framed posters lining the walls. People dressed nice enough to make her suddenly aware of the exhaustion wrinkled into her clothes from the bus ride.
She has never liked theaters much.
Not because she hated performances.
But because performers could see you back.
There was always this unspoken expectation between stage and audience — react correctly. Laugh at the right moments. Look emotional when everyone else does.
It always made her nervous.
Like she might fail some invisible social test without realizing.
Dex turns back toward her with a smile wide enough to flash his teeth.
Bright.
Boyish.
Excited in a way that catches her off guard.
Reader smiles back automatically before something makes her pause.
A gap.
One of his canines is missing.
The realization hits so suddenly she almost stares.
Did he lose a tooth?
Before she can think too hard about it, Dex has already turned back toward the cashier to grab the tickets.
Reader blinks once.
Maybe she imagined it.
“Here,” Dex says as he steps back toward her. “Lucky us. We’ll be able to see the whole stage from where we sit.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t have—”
“No.” Dex shakes his head immediately, already handing one of the tickets to you. “I promise this is going to be the best date you’ve ever had and you know I would never go back on my promise to you.”
There’s something almost earnest in the way he says it.
Like he truly believes he can manufacture happiness carefully enough for you to step inside it.
“Come on.”
He takes your duffle bag from you before you can protest, and you adjust the strap of your shoulder bag while following him deeper into the theatre.
The ticket feels smooth beneath your thumb.
Real.
A real date.
A normal one.
That realization makes something soften quietly inside your chest.
He remembered.
Seven years ago—before you left him, before Coney Island.
You had once whispered against his skin in the hazy warmth of your cramped apartment that you wanted normal things with him.
Theme parks.
Movies.
Dates.
Things ordinary couples did without bloodshed waiting somewhere nearby.
At the time, Dex had only listened quietly beside you, his fingers lazily tracing circles against your waist while he stared up at the ceiling in thought. You remembered assuming he wasn’t really paying attention.
But he had been.
Of course he had.
Dex remembered everything about you in the way some people remembered prayers.
And now here he was.
Trying.
The thought alone makes warmth bloom unexpectedly through you.
Before Dex can catch you staring too long, you suddenly reach upward, looping your arms around his shoulders and pulling him down toward you with a small laugh.
Your kisses land recklessly across his face.
One against his cheek.
Another near the corner of his mouth.
One over the bridge of his nose.
Dex immediately breaks into startled laughter, the sound spilling out of him so genuine and unguarded it almost catches you off guard too.
“Oh, shit— careful,” he laughs breathlessly as the both of you nearly stumble across the plush red carpeting together.
His hand catches firmly around your waist before you can trip, instinctively pulling you against him.
You only laugh harder for it.
And somehow that makes him laugh harder too.
The sound echoes warmly between the crowded theater halls around you, careless and bright and strangely young.
For a few fleeting moments beneath the warm golden theater lights, the world almost reshapes itself into something gentler.
Something kinder.
A normal date.
A normal love.
Where the two of you could pretend you were still young enough for tenderness to be uncomplicated.
That your bodies were not already worn thin by grief and violence and regret.
That what existed between you had once been nothing more than harmless puppy love instead of something sharp enough to wound everyone around it.
Summary: Seven years after escaping Benjamin Poindexter, you return to New York believing the war between you had long since died.
But Dex is no longer the broken man you left behind — and loving him now means surviving the violence, obsession, and terrifying intimacy that follows in his wake.
As old wounds reopen beneath neon lights and bloodstained nights, you begin to wonder if the most dangerous thing about Dex was never the violence… but how badly you still want him anyway.
C.W: graphic violence • blood and gore • guns and weapon usage • toxic relationships • obsessive love • emotional dependency • trauma bonding • derealization • panic attacks • unhealthy intimacy • manipulation • mentions of suicide & mental illness • themes of abandonment • possessiveness • stalking behavior • implied / subtle sexual content • morally grey dynamics • reader discretion advised.
Log 1: Homecoming (part 1) (part 2) (part 3)
Log 2: Lies in the Eyes of Love (part 1) (part 2) (part 3)
Log 3: Don't Promise me a Rose Garden (part 1) (part 2) (part 3)
- Quit your job runaway, Runaway! By Junior Mesar🌺
-Cicadas by Mother Soki ☁️
- make me wanna by Babehaven, navy blue🌺
-Desire by Puma blue🌺
- within a dream by white flowers☁️
- night drive by white flowers☁️
- into black by blouse🌺
- cathedral bells - "ephemeral"🌺
- sugarcane switch by Eartheater☁️
- crushing by Eartheater☁️
- salt of the earth (h2ome) by eartheater☁️
- beneath the veil by pulsemeld🍻
- woman of faces (demo) by celeste 🍻
- joneses by mother soki ☁️
- teeth by mother soki☁️
- sea glass by lazygirl☁️
- the precipice by jessie mazin🪻
-Air kissing by violet indiana🍻
- tears for fears - until i drown 🌺
- easy to dream by sophie marks🌺
- you are the one by sports🌺
-until i know by panchinko🪻
-Mareux - hurt 🌺🪻
-deftones - sleepwalk🌺☁️
- planning for burial - warmth of you 🌺
-slow by Aakanksha☁️
- redny - girl with the tattoo (remix) 🫧☁️
- 13. Sutphin Boulevard part 2 (concluded)☁️
-watching tv by magdalena bay 🌺
-images by magdalena bay 🌺 (saw an edit of ddba dex & it’s been on repeat ever since lol)
- Y by Praa 🌺
- till the end of time (kiss my neck) by Aidan 🪻🌺
- twin flame by Weyes blood🌺
- time by Aakanksha ☁️
-heart to heart by Aakanksha☁️
- Love (demo) by Aakanksha☁️
- tear stains by tezvix 🖤
- a double suicide by sheena ringo 🍻🌺
- cocaine kisses by leezy 🪻
- 2+1 by nagahori25 ☁️
- portugal - helvetia🌺
- nastyona - 06 🌺
- shades of blue by kelsey lu☁️🪻
- we took each other’s hands by kaori sawada🍻🪻
- starting over by lsd and the search for god🌺
- purity ring - grandloves🫧
- (shes) just a phase by puma blue🪻
- back to me by the marias 🌺
- back to you - not for radio🪻
- just like heaven by catte adams🍻
- crack baby by mitski🪻
- cry by newdad🌺
- january by isaur 🌺
- owls eye ivri☁️
- france by yumi zouma ☁️
- in my arms by MercyDaOne🪻
- zombie by plaza🌺
- all night by lucidbeatz 🌺☁️
- track 02 (dangerous lover) by avenoir🌺
The majority of these are from soundcloud 😼
And any song from white flowers on youtube (i dont have soundcloud+ lol)
•And here are some tv shows recs:
The day of jackal
Silo
Imperfect women ( there’s wilson bethel on this one for a few minutes but the plot is amazing!)
(To watch these go on private browser if you have an iphone, then go on the streaming website "lookmovie2.to") [*wink wink*]
I hope you enjoy these! Have a lovely day! 💗
PS: i’m also 19 🤝🫡
OMG girl I'm so excited to check these songs outtt. Also the only song I know from the recommendation you gave me is Crack Baby by Mitski. You don't know how much I've ugly cry to Mitski songs. Also yesssss I watch from lookmovie and other websites as well for my movies and shows. We all trying to survive in this economy to pay for a streaming service. I will definitely check the shows out in my free time and thank you for this amazing recommendation 💗💗💗
I was supposed to start revising for an exam last night, but I stayed up until sunrise reading Polaris and omds, your writing is exceptionally beautiful. I cried throughout my reading (maybe I'm just a crybaby lol) because your writing and the tones and the general atmosphere felt so raw. I genuinely felt like I was being dissected while exploring the perspectives of OC!Reader. Polaris was such an experience I feel like my heart has altered its rhythm of beating because that's how dear this work has become to me. Also when I saw that you were the same age as me, I was absolutely flabbergasted with just how well you write: the pacing, the storylines, the complexities of reader's and Dex's minds/relationship-- like I'm honestly going mental just constantly raving about your work to my friends. This isn't much of an ask lol (and I honestly am not expecting a response from you); I just wanted to let you know how grateful I am that you shared your writing and what a privilege (and honour) it was reading it. Thank you for writing and letting us read your work.
OMG no of courseeee I will response to you. I'm literally giggling like a school girl on the fact that you have raved to your friends about my work. I'm glad my work managed to have a profound effect on you. This actually means alot to me cause recently I'm having writer's block and it's killing meeeeee. Can't get anything out of my head other than being worried I might not be able to give off the same effect I did on Polaris. So Thank you so muchhh I hope you got flying colors mark on your exams.
A.N: I have a confession to make. In recent days, I have been veryyyyy hesitant to write. I know, I should be working on the sequel which I am, I should be working on my digital Gallery (like where is that?!) , yes also which I am working on but...only today, that I am posting this art work , have I realized....I am scared.
This is something I have never experienced when I was writing Polaris only now when I realized that I have written something good that I have become scared of the prospect that...this sequel I am working on, might not be as good as before.
It has become a looming anxiety over me that every time I sit down to write, every time I come up with a plot or an idea, I rush to my lap top to smash on the buttons only—to hesitate. Is this out of character? Will this stick with the direction I'm heading? Wait what direction am I even heading?
I never felt this when I wrote Polaris, I naturally go with the flow that isn't caged by these doubts I have. I don't know the stem of my anxiety but I have a feeling it would be quiet a while before I release Polaris Sequel.
I've only written till the 15% of the first chapter and I'm already panicking. In the mean time, I hope my art works can satisfy you all in the mean time. peace✌️😊
