anchor up to me, love
Post DDBA S2!Benjamin ‘Dex’ Poindexter x fem!reader
word count: 3,176
Tags/Warnings: 18+ minors DNI!, emotional hurt/comfort, pre-established agreement of free use, consensual somnophilia, explicit consent, minor injuries, breeding kink, size kink, established relationship, comfort sex
Summary: Dex has a clean slate, but that doesn’t stop him from having a bad night and needing to anchor himself back down. Luckily he always has you to come home to at the end of everything.
Authors note: The edits of this man have successfully got to me and now I have a Pinterest board, a playlist and a dream. I was rewatching the season 3 episodes of him at the hotline and genuinely trying to do good with Julie and I just wanted to see what he’d be like with that clean slate he was given at the end of ddba s2. I had to cap this at 3k before the word count truly spiralled because I was having too many ideas and wanted to add so much more but I’m supposed to be working on my Bob Reynolds x reader long fic! Also sorry for any errors, I wrote this whole thing in a Sunday afternoon, PLEASE let me know and I will fix them! (Title is from Anchor by Novo Amor)
It’s not the sudden slam of your kitchen window when it drops closed, or the thud of Dex’s body on the tiled floor that wakes you up, nor is it the curse that escapes him when he heaves himself up to put the knocked over spices back into the order he knows you like. It’s also not the clatter of a loose throwing knife that hits the floor when he kicks off his boots, unwilling to leave footprints when he can smell the lemon floor cleaner you must have used when he was gone.
You don’t even stir when Dex stumbles into your room, distracted and clumsy as he tries to draw even breaths. You’re still laying on your front, limbs tangled in the sheets like you’d been restless all night. He knows you hate sleeping without him, even on nights where you tell him ‘It’s fine’ and reassure him that you aren’t going anywhere. He hates it too, even though he’d never said it out loud, not wanting to unlock that safe inside his mind that would tell him to never leave your side.
None of his gentle touches, that graze of gloved hands along your bare thighs or his lips against your forehead pull you from whatever dream you must be having. If it were any other time he would retreat, peel off his suit and let the hot water of the shower calm him down, but tonight that won’t do it.
It’s the quiet ‘Can I?’ that finally brings you out of sleep. A small question he whispers against your neck even when you’ve told him before that he doesn’t need to ask, ever. But he always does anyways, you think he likes the reminder, that he always has this access to you.
With Julie he’d never felt anything romantic, and that made it easier to keep his distance for all that time, but he couldn’t imagine doing the same with you and his upper lip curls with irritation just thinking about it.
Even now, settled above you on your bed in an apartment you’ve shared for months, it doesn’t feel close enough, and Dex wants to laugh in the face of all the past versions of him who had thought there was something fundamentally broken inside of him, despite being told otherwise. That false truth he’d accepted for so long that he’d only be able to obsess, and never love, almost any emotion from someone with psychopathic tendencies like him would have to be forced, it’d never come naturally.
What a fucking lie.
Everything was natural with you, mostly because he never expected it, he hadn’t been looking for you. Just revenge.
Dex didn’t even have to force meeting you as his neighbor, somewhere lost in that time shortly after his escape, back when he’d gripped the closest item to use as a weapon as he’d opened the door that first time to see you standing there. He remembers every detail, your flushed face from climbing the multiple flights of stairs, a hopeful smile on your lips as you asked if he had seen the neighbor's cat you were helping to track down. He’d offered to help you without a second thought, without even a first one really because he was supposed to be forming his plan to get revenge on the Fisks for ruining his life, supposed to be balancing the scales. But he’d do anything for you, even back then.
And you’d do anything for him too.
Even now, at three am it takes you only a second to process his question, the need clouding his hoarse voice like an oncoming storm, and you vaguely register that a hand is tracing against the bare skin of your back even though you’d gone to sleep fully clothed. Had he taken it off or had you?
“Sweetheart?” A raw and strained voice probes again, thinking you hadn’t heard him, and your gasp is muffled against the pillow when a set of fingers you hadn’t taken notice of yet, press down between your thighs. You still have your underwear on, but they’ve been pushed to the side, exposing you to his leather covered hands.
He still has his gloves on, and the scrape of damp fabric against your jaw when he places a delicate kiss there tells you he still has the mask on too, pulled up just enough to use his mouth. How long has he already been working you up, deciding if his mind was loud enough to warrant using the agreement you had in place?
How bad was his night for him to come straight to you without even getting out of his suit and showering first, betraying his own routine?
“Please,” You nod, finally answering a question that never needed to be asked.
It’s quiet, and barely audible over the dulled city noises just beyond your window, but you think you hear a quiet ‘Thank you’ muffled against your neck.
Dex’s gloved hand pulls away from your cunt, the tips of them reflective in the moonlight with evidence of your arousal, and he’s so glad the two of you put the bed near the window when you moved here together. This building was safer than the one you’d met in, less potential entry points and with the help of Mr Charles and his new line of freelance work, the perks of reinforced glass windows you could sleep in front of with no worry.
No, with this clean slate you were safe. He didn’t have to worry about you, but that still didn’t stop him from doing so anytime you were apart.
You’re still only half awake when he unbuckles his tactical pants, the sound of the zipper giving you a few seconds notice before his knees are guiding your legs apart, his chest lowering to press against your back, effectively pinning you against the mattress, still fully in his suit. You can feel the outline of the leather gun holster on the middle of his chest, but there’s no solid mass, no weapon, nothing that could hurt you.
And, god, it’s times like this you remember how big he is, how easily he completely covers your body with his own, and you can’t help but squirm when you feel the head of his cock rock up between your thighs.
If Dex’s fingers hadn’t gotten you wet enough before, this certainly will, and he settles into a slow rhythm, coaxing your body to relax beneath him with every slide of his hard length, getting you used to him. Your body’s already memorized him, the familiar way he occasionally catches on your opening before pushing further to nudge against your clit, and then he draws his hips back to repeat the motion over, and over, and over.
The gentle grinding must make you fall back into sleep, only for a few seconds, because when you’re alert again it’s to him sinking halfway inside you.
“Fuck-“ Your lungs seize up when he gets to the last couple inches. No matter how long it’s been, how much time he spends getting you ready for him, it’s always a struggle, and it’s not just the length of him, but the unexpected thickness towards the base too.
“Shh, shh,” Dex takes his time as he continues that slow stretch, “You’re okay, just breathe,” he urges shakily with a small kiss to your temple as he finally settles himself all the way in, his hips flush against the curve of your ass, fingers finding yours to intertwine together. “I’m here.”
One thing you learned early on with him is that during nights like these, when he needs to shut off his head, he never stops talking. Sometimes it’s all to you, whispered praises, declarations of love, telling you how good you are for him, and other nights it’s rambled snippets of things he’s trying to get out of his head, trying to purify himself before he can ever let any of his actions taint you.
His girl. His North Star.
You always tell him nothing would make you change your mind on him, but he still feels compelled to tell you it all anyways.
“Didn’t want to wake you up,” A quiet grunt escapes him when he pulls back, barely enough so he can rut back into you immediately after, hating that sickening feeling whenever a part of his skin separates from yours.
“It’s okay,” You reassure him, you want to say more, want to ask him how his night was, if the small smears of blood he’s leaving on your joined hands is his or someone else’s, if you need to be worried that he’s hurt. But the deep press of his cock against your cervix steals every word you want to say, and you can only gasp instead.
“Shh, m’sorry,” He curses and squeezes your hands in an unnecessary apology because you’re trying to catch your breath so you can ask him for more.
Another thing that surprised you about Dex is how gentle he can be.
You’ve seen him in action of course, it was unavoidable the day you found out everything when Fisk sent people after you, ‘revenge for his wife’ Dex had said later on. That same day when he had to beg you to run with him so you didn’t end up like Julie, with the wildest look you’ve ever seen in his eyes, face splattered with blood as he asked you to trust him.
Of course you did, even though you watched as he took down five men in task force branded vests with just a few small movements of his hands.
You never once doubted the promises he made to keep you away from harm, when you blindly followed him to a safe house he got ready the moment he met you ‘just in case’, you’d understood when Dex told you about his past, the why behind his need to settle the scale by killing Vanessa.
You know the hands that are squeezing yours like an anchor as his cock reaches impossible places inside you again, are hands that have killed probably too many to count. But aside from those occasional times where you have to half-beg him to be rough with you, or the more common occurrences of hickeys and bite marks that you know he loves admiring whenever he can leave them, he’s the softest touch you’ve ever felt.
“I’ll be careful, you can go back to sleep,” Dex murmurs, less shaky now he’s inside you, he’d said once he always felt bad when he woke you up for this, that he knows you can never fully settle after. He’s managed it plenty of times before, sometimes never going further than satisfying his need to be inside you until he’s utterly calm, like the surface of a lake with currents rolling beneath, threatening to pull you down into them.
“Don’t need sleep-“ You shake your head, and it’s only when you feel the wet patch on your pillow against your cheek do you realise you must have started drooling at some point. “Need you-“
You always need him.
Through the layers of armoured fabric on his chest, you can feel the stutter of his breath, the still-there quiet disbelief at knowing you’re always waiting for him, always wanting him in a way that matches his own and fuck it’s never something he thought he’d get.
“That’s my girl,” Dex sighs, warm breath rolling over your face as he presses his face closer to yours. There’s an unmistakable metallic tinge to it that tells you there’s blood in his mouth and fear spikes in your chest.
What does the CIA have him doing-
“You’re bleeding, Dex-“
His laugh rumbles through against your back, abrupt and breathy while he smirks at your concern, like you’re worried a paper cut could make him bleed out.
“I’m okay, promise, just need you, Sweetheart.” You catch a flash of his face, dark eyes framed by the fabric of the balaclava, you were right about the lower half being pulled up. His mouth is bloody with a split lip, but it doesn’t hold him back from the lopsided smirk, one that would look threatening to anyone else, but with you it brings a sudden rush of warmth and slickness between your thighs.
He knows, fuck he must know the effect it has because he releases one of your hands from his leather grip so he can slide his arm between you and the mattress, expertly finding your clit in seconds. You should feel some sort of shame, filthy at the fact he’s still wearing those gloves that dance tightly wound circles over where you need him most, an inch higher from where he’s splitting you open on his length.
Everything from now is measured, examined by eyes trained to pick up every tiny detail, every miniscule reaction as your cunt begins involuntarily fluttering around his cock, every thrust growing harder now you’re dripping down him, ruining his tactical pants further along with your bedsheets.
Dex tuts when you close your eyes to hide from the feeling, but he lets you have the escape, for now at least.
“Dex, I’m gonna-“
“I know, I know sweetheart, let go,” Dex rasps, sweet and condescending, like he’s not making you fall apart with a hand that you can’t be sure hasn’t been used to kill someone tonight.
The thought should terrify you, he should terrify you, but how could he when he’s littering your face with kisses, holding you like you’re something precious, needing you like you’re important to him.
You’re tightening around him almost painfully, limp and choking on dry sobs beneath him and all you can do is squeeze the hand you’re still holding, your free one reaching behind to try and pull him closer by the back of his neck, aching for him to kiss you as you practically mewl his name, but he keeps a set distance so he can watch you.
“Dex! Dexdexdexdex-“ You can’t get out anything except his name and your eyes fly open to find his already on you, they probably never left. It’s his favorite part after all, the moment you come undone for him, and often he never settles for it happening just once, but he has to right now if he’s going to make that noise in his mind go quiet.
“Got you- I’ve got you.” Dex grunts, snapping his hips into yours and savouring the way you soak him, the strangled moans you make that continue to spur him on, pulling him away from one edge, but pushing him towards another.
One he’s ready to leap from with a single question, “Inside?”
Dex never left things up to chance, you could argue calculated and precise are two of the three words you’d use to describe him, along with loving, but slowly the two of you had fallen into this habit of playing this game of chances.
Everything had started with small pills that you’d forgotten one too many times to be considered safe anymore, so you moved onto condoms. That method didn’t last nearly as long, coming to an abrupt end one night you both forgot the tiny foil square in the nightstand and remembered that bare slide of skin and skin, a mutual agreement was made that you trusted him enough to pull out each time, letting him paint your stomach or lower back with his spend.
That was until you got reckless, pleading him to stay at a point in your cycle you weren’t at risk of anything serious happening. That’s when you saw that look in his eyes after he withdrew just enough to see himself still leaking from your cunt. Those ribbons of white he fought the urge to gather up and push back inside that screamed evidence you were his.
You started to say you weren’t trying… but you weren’t not trying.
Dex knows your cycle as well as you right now, knows this isn’t like those weeks marked a shade of blue on your app that tells you both it’s not a risk, knows the weight of his question that he’d never ask if he wasn’t sure you weren’t safe from potential harm, in a high security apartment with the bulletproof windows even he couldn’t break through.
But to you, the weight of it may as well be a feather.
“Inside.” You agree.
In an instant, the remaining hand still locked with yours pulls away, instead sliding up along your throat, where you’re sure he must feel how much your heart is racing, and settles on your jaw. So big that he doesn’t even have to spread his fingers to be able to hold almost your whole face and pull you into a kiss for the first time, his blood and saliva swirling in your mouth as his tongue slides against your own.
“Fuuuck-“ Dex groans into you, long and quiet like you’re pulling it out of him and he shudders, his movements becoming sloppy and harsh until you feel it. A flood of warmth, so much of it that it escapes you almost immediately, despite the fact he’s pressed so deeply inside that you can feel he’s right against your cervix.
Dex stays in you, long enough for you to know it’s more than usual, long enough to know you should add tests to next month's shopping list. But that’s a worry for another day. For now, you look out at the lights in the city, in a few hours people would be beginning to wake, and you wonder if you’ll catch any evidence of Dex’s bad night on the news.
“Better?” You ask only once his breathing’s slowed and he’s relaxed on top of you.
“Better.” Dex agrees quietly, finally withdrawing his hand from between your thighs to tug his mask off, sweat dampened hair falling into his face. Thankfully his mouth seems to be the worst of it, he’s got a bruise blooming on his cheekbone but his nose isn’t crooked, and there’s no black eye or potential concussion to monitor. “I’m gonna shower, okay?”
“Think you’re getting away that easy?” You ask when he pulls out, cringing at that uncomfortable sudden wetness between your thighs, underwear still pushed to the side. You’d definitely have to change the sheet before going back to sleep.
“What, you want to come with me?” Dex teases, still not at the same confidence he usually would, still withdrawn from whatever got under his skin.
“Someone has to make sure you’re not gonna pass out,” You mumble airily, teasing him back as you twist over onto your back and stretch, forcing your body to wake up the rest of the way.
“I love you.” It’s effortless from his mouth, not rehearsed, said with the ghost of a smile as he mentally files the sight of you still spent on the bed while he begins to strip off items of clothing, abandoning them on the floor.
“I love you too.”
