Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It’s not even that late. 

Ten-thirty, maybe eleven. You were out cold, starfished out on the mattress like you owned it. Dex could smell your lotion, feel the heat of body radiate inches from his. He lies there on his back with that self-assured settling in his chest he only gets when you’re tucked up safe in his bed, in his apartment. 

If he had it his way, you’d be in his arms too. 

That’s always been a step too far. 

He’d probably wake up castrated or down an eyeball. 

He can’t sleep. It’s like he’s wired all the fucking time now, that urge singing in his veins, the need for blood and silence and something final. 

Ever since that piece of shit broke into his apartment and broke your wrist. Ever since he had to hold you, shaking and covered in blood crying out for him, sobbing his name. 

The bruises had faded to faint yellow marks around your eye and forehead. The ones of your stomach were deeper, darker, but you didn’t let him look at those. Your wrist was still in the cast. He took you to the ED, waited in the car while you told them some story about tripping down the stairs and let them set it in plaster. 

He’d killed thirteen people over it. Friends and friends of friends and the idiot’s half-brother. Anyone who’d even been within a whisper of what had happened that night had ended up with a knife buried through the eye socket. 

He didn’t tell you that. He’d said he handled it. 

You’re not stupid, but it’s easier for you to digest if he doesn’t confront you with the details. 

The sleep he can function without. It used to be torture, the never-ending buzzing in his head, the way his thoughts swarmed and consumed him and would drown him in the darkness of those sleepless nights. 

Now? Now he can watch you. 

And God, you’re beautiful. 

It’s the only time he can see the face of the girl that loved him. He turns his head on the pillow and the nostalgia is like a punch in his gut. Brows smooth and relaxed, mouth slack, pretty eyelashes dark against your cheeks. 

You don’t have those hollow eyes that the light doesn’t fully reach. The ones that bore into him like you can see straight through him, dissect him layer by layer. You used to have these big wide eyes that shone at him like he was the sun. You’d look up at him with a smile curling at the corner of your lips, like you were so content just being next to him. 

Now he’s lucky if he doesn’t catch you glowering with simmering contempt. 

You don’t have that tension in your face, the kind you hold in your cheeks and your jaw and grind between your molars. It gives you headaches, and he hates it. Hates that it’s him that’s hurting you.

You used to get headaches when you were stressed. 

He didn’t like seeing you in pain, of course not. But fuck- you used to curl into him and bury your head into his chest like you could rub the pain out. Used to say he was better than ibuprofen. 

He’d get you water and pain killers and brush his fingers through your hair and listen to you groan as the pain ebbed. The vibrations would reverberate through his sternum and it was like an off switch for his brain. 

He tried. Saw the wince and the twitch of your masseter and your eyes closing like the lights are too bright. He didn’t say anything, didn’t fuss, didn’t try to overwhelm you-

But he just couldn’t stand it.

And he missed you. 

So goddamn much. 

He left a glass of water and tylenol and ibuprofen on your nightstand. Watched you through the crack in the door, staring at it as you sat on the mattress for what felt like an eternity. Didn’t touch it. 

He lay there on the couch wishing you’d collapse on top of him, forehead smushed against his pec like you used to. 

You walked past and faltered. Just one second. 

It hurt worse than if you’d just kept going. 

Because you remembered. And some part of you felt that old pull, the one woven in between both of your bones. 

And then you’d kept going. 

You shift, nose crinkling, that adorable irritation you always get when you can’t find a comfortable position to sleep. 

He lies there, hands clenched into fists, pressed against his thighs like he has to physically restrain himself from reaching over and tucking you up against him. You always settled when he wrapped you up in your arms. 

This ache is worse than anything he’s ever felt. Falling four stories onto a road was nothing compared to this desperate, burning want. 

He’d break his spine in half again just to ease it. 

There’s a creak, distant. Something in the walls. You’re twenty seven floors up. He doesn’t even blink. 

You startle. 

One second you’re deep asleep, the next your eyes are wide open, every part of your body tense. He shuts his eyes on impulse, afraid to set you off by being caught watching you sleep. 

There’s a second of your heavy breathing. 

Then his name, hissed urgently. 

He almost can’t believe it. The selfish, greedy part of him waits. 

You nudge his shoulder, hard, a sharp poke that almost jolts his whole body. “Dex.”

He blinks his eyes open, feigns bleariness, the sluggish turn of his head. “Mm?”

“Dex.” You’re trembling, he can feel it across the mattress, hear it in that shakiness in your voice. 

“What’s wrong baby?” He pushes himself up on his elbow, all pretence fading now. You look terrified. He’ll fix it. 

“I- I heard something.” You’re second guessing yourself now, eyes darting to the door and back to his face. “I swear I- I heard something.”

“Hey- hey-” he keeps his voice calm, but not soothing. Nothing to set you off. “You’re okay, you’re safe.”

“That sound.” Your eyes are going haywire, ramping up, not calming down. “Dex I heard something.”

“I know.” His eyes lock onto yours, and you just stop, for a second. “It’s just something settling.”

He knows there’s no one in the apartment. 

He’s got sensors, motion activated cameras, a doorman and an elevator that needs a code and a reinforced door. He didn’t take a single chance after the break in. 

But your brain doesn’t operate off logic, not like this. There’s just fear and memories and the reminder of the heavy cast on your wrist. 

“Can you check?” Your voice is so small he almost misses it. 

But of course he doesn’t. 

It hits like a knife in the gut. Sharp, stinging, warmth spreading a few beats after the initial impact that felt like a thud and nothing else, so quick his brain hadn’t registered what happened. 

“‘Course I can.” He swallows roughly. “You want to stay here?”

You nod, burrowed in the blankets, cheek smushed against the pillow. Already relaxing. 

Because he’s got it. 

Because you trusted him enough to wake him up when you got scared. 

Because you felt safe having him handle it for you. 

Jesus Christ, he needs to leave the room before he does something embarrassing. Like smile. Or stare. Or tell you he loves you. 

He gets up, grabs a knife because it’s part of the routine. Sweeps the apartment methodically, properly. Even though you can’t see it. 

He knows it’s empty before his feet even hit the floorboards and he does it anyway. 

He can’t stop thinking about you back in their bed, waiting for him. 

He’s in the living room, and it’s a jagged interception of his brain and his eyes. The empty, wiped down benchtops. The lines of the pillowcase creased into your cheek. The locked front door. Your hair splayed out across the pillow. The empty couches. A collarbone peeking out of your pajama shirt, the collar stretched and well-worn. 

Once it’s done, once he’s diligently checked every crevice, behind every door, whatever makes you feel better, whatever you need, he comes back. 

The knife is stored back in his bedside draw, a soft drag of wood and thump as it closes. You’re gazing up at him, waiting, looking at him for answers you trusted him to provide. 

“All clear baby.” He murmurs “No one here.”

“I know- it’s stupid-” You let out a shaky sigh, full of relief he longed to give you. “It just sounded like him.”

Your voice wobbles and there’s a flash of rage so consuming he can’t hear anything, can’t picture anything except you on the floor. He should’ve kept that fucker alive, should’ve made him bleed slowly, should’ve done everything he did to you and then some more. 

Should’ve cut his head off and left it on his family’s doorstep. 

He softens, the same way he always tried to before, hiding all the parts of him he knew you couldn’t handle. Drops his shoulders, morphs his expression into something less intense, something purposefully mundane. Luckily, he’s wearing a white cotton shirt and loose shorts, hides his scars, keeps a layer removed from the intimacy he craves. 

“It’s not stupid, it’s just your brain trying to protect you.” He thinks they’re the right words. Your eyes don’t narrow, you don’t bristle. “It’s okay.”

You nod, sleep already finding you again, eyes half-lidded, sinking into the blankets. Calm. 

He did that. 

He settles back into bed next to you, watching you drift off. Everything inside him is abated, like the feral dog inside of him has been fed a bone. Finally laid down and gnawed on it. 

You got scared, and you reached for him to keep you safe. 

You get your cast off four weeks later. Your arm is frail, muscle wasting, skin fragile and pale. You keep finding yourself staring at it, wiggling your fingers to feel the aching stiffness that means it’s still yours, still there. 

All the other signs have faded. The bruises, the blood stained floorboards, the tangled mats Dex spent hours combing out of your hair. Anyone would look at you and have no idea six weeks ago a man broke into your apartment and tried to kill you. 

You don’t know if it’s worse. 

Not seeing the proof, the wounds and the marks that were tangible evidence that shit that haunts your nightmares was real. 

Now all that’s left is the prickling at the back of your neck, the surges of horrific panic that have you look for somewhere safe. 

And it’s been Dex. 

After the nightmares, you wake up and look across the mattress, the broad outline of his sleeping silhouette helping slow the erratic thumping of your heart. When you’re standing in the living room and you can feel the searing tug of fingers wrapped in your hair, you end up drifting to him, finding him in the kitchen, the bedroom, on the couch. Just orbiting. 

You hate it, God you fucking hate it, becuase you know that smug asshole notices every single little bit of it, and you know how much he loves it. You want to strip him of his satisfaction, want to rip every little bit of pleasure he gets from this from out from his bones. 

But you can’t, because when you were pinned on that floor with hot breath on your face and a knife at your throat, you called his name. 

Dex notices you uncomfortably testing out your wrist. He’s over to the couch in a second, crouching down next to you, eyes honed in with that unwavering focus he seemingly has reserved only for you. 

“How’s it feeling?” He murmurs, tracking the stiff way you try to roll it. 

You give up, hands falling to your lap. You’re staring over his shoulder, fixing your eyes on a patch of floor instead of his. “Fine.”

You can feel the eyebrow raise. “Fine?”

You bristle, already anticipating the scrutiny, the unwavering weight of his attention, the little desperate attempts at bridging the rift between you. 

You sigh. “It doesn’t hurt, it just feels…weird. Stiff. I don’t know.”

“You haven’t used it for weeks.” His tone is calm, authoritative in a way that makes you want to punch him. “It’ll take a while to get its strength back.”

“I know what the doctors said.” You snap, shifting away from him. “I was there.”

He doesn’t get shocked, or angry, or frustrated. He just smiles, that sort of amused lift of the sharp corners of his mouth you used to see all the time and reminds you of before, not after. 

“Mm.” He hums, standing up. “You want anything?”

I want you to get shot on a job so I’m finally free. I want to walk outside and see newspaper articles about you bleeding out in an alleyway. I want to go back to my shitty apartment and sleep without nightmares of you and him and you saving me. I want you to hold me while I sleep. I want to take the stupid painkillers you leave when I get headaches without feeling like I’m betraying all the people you killed. I want my boyfriend back. 

“No.” You look at him, finally. “Thanks.”

Everything hurts. You slept wrong, forced into an awkward position by this instinctive need to protect your wrist. Back aching, shoulders tight and tugging at the ligaments. You can’t get comfortable. 

You’re shifting around, hunching over on one side, hands on your hips, hands outstretched, standing, sitting, on your stomach, on your back. Temporary relief before your muscles lock and seize again and the pain grips you. 

You’re face down in the couch cushions swearing under your breath when you hear the front door open. 

“Baby?” Dex’s voice carries, unable to mask the rough edges of the neurotic anxiety that bleeds through. “Where are you?”

You groan in response, muffled by the sofa. You can hear him pause, then the heavy footfalls coming around the couch. 

“What’s wrong?” Immediate concern. You groan again. 

“‘Mm fine.”

“You’re always fine.” The annoyance in his voice is palpable. You can picture it, him standing there head tilted slightly back, eyes on the ceiling in exasperation. “What’s fine this time?”

You huff, petulant, childish in a way you never usually allow yourself. You don’t have the energy. “Back.”

“You hurt yourself?”

“Just hurts.” You mumble. “Slept wrong.”

“Sweetheart.” He sighs, like he’s disappointed. “You’ve been lying here in pain the whole day?”

“It’s fine.”

“You can call me.”

You’d laugh if you had the energy. You end up sighing into the fabric, refusing to look up and what is no doubt that half-pitying, half-pathetic expression on his stupid face. 

Your back is locking up again, agony rippling through the sinews under your skin. You shift, barely able to wriggle out of the position you’ve got yourself in. A whimper to slip from your lips. 

His response is immediate. 

Dex’s hand is warm and firm between your shoulder blades, fingertips pressing firmly into the tense muscle under your scapula. “I can help.”

He can. He’s good with his hands. You used to demand back rubs before bed, watch him fold with the slightest hint of a pout. 

You don’t answer. You don’t trust yourself to say no convincingly, don’t trust your voice not to squeak and waver. He can tell you’re lying like a bloodhound can sniff out a fugitive. His fingers flex, digging just enough to lessen some of that stubborn tension and a desperate sigh slips past your lips. 

He freezes. You don’t dare move. 

“You want me to massage it baby?” The smugness is back. “Don’t have to lie there in pain.”

His fingers dig back in and you whine. Like an idiot. 

“Yeah, baby?” Soft, dripping with something like awe. “Feel better?”

 You won’t answer, just let him work, let the pain ease, let your muscles relax. The fabric of your shirt bunches up under his palms, dulls the warmth, stops him digging deep enough. 

“You gotta say it.” He’s so much closer now, you can feel the breath against your ear, the heat from his chest radiating against your back. “Gotta tell me what you want.”

“Mmm.” You groan as he digs in a particularly tender spot. 

“Can’t hear you sweetheart.” Another press that has you hissing. 

“Fuck- Dex okay, yes.” You pant. You hear what you think might be him chuckling under his breath.

“All I needed baby.”

You drift from the moment, let the roll of his warm, calloused palms lull you away from here. The knots loosen, tension easing, pain ebbing until it’s just a dull pulse at the edge of your periphery. Not fixed, not gone, but manageable. 

You hold your mind in one fixed place, just your body, just the relief, not the fact it’s Dex, Dex touching you, Dex kneading in those same fingers that killed Detective Harper and that lawyer’s friend and countless other people. 

Fingertips that are currently finding a familiar home in the map of your muscles he’s memorised like its salvation. 

Kneeling beside you like a devoted man worshipping at an altar. 

Like he can find salvation in easing your pain. 

Like it can atone for the ruin he caused. 

“Missed this.” He says it quietly, the kind of low tone meant for him and not you, need seeping out no matter how much he tries to keep it in. 

You would pick a fight, but you’ve melted into the couch. 

You don’t know when it switches, when he stops probing at problem muscles and tight joints and starts smoothing his palm across your back. 

It starts small, circling your sore shoulder blade and upper back, and grows bigger, rubbing his hand from your shoulder to your hip. You feel your eyes close, growing heavy, body relaxed and pliant, mind blissfully calm. 

He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t taunt, doesn’t coo, does punctuate whatever condescending bullshit with a thousand babys. He just stays kneeling beside you, rubbing your back, coaxing you towards sleep you do desperately need. 

“You’re okay.” He murmurs, voice just filtering into your subconscious. “Just sleep.”

His hand moves in a steady rhythm, and you let it rock you, let the heaviness dull your head. 

You feel the press of his lips to the back of your neck before your drift off. 

Gentle. 

Loving. 

Safe. 

“You are so fucking disgusting.”

The box clutched in your hands almost crumples under the weight of your white-knuckled grip. You’re standing at the foot of your bed. Dex’s hand is still on the doorknob, and his eyes widen when he sees what you’re holding. 

And you just think, I’ve got you for once, you motherfucker. 

“Baby-”

“Do not.” You snap, voice rising. “Don’t you dare call me that right now.”

For the first time in a very long time, he just shuts his mouth, stepping into the room. He doesn’t move in further, stays in the corner with his arms loose down by his sides, the desperate yearning in his hard eyes. 

You pull the stack of photographs out, tossing the empty box onto the bed. 

Thick glossy paper, a weight in your hands. Almost a hundred pictures. 

Of you. 

You’d been looking for an old pair of pants and found it hidden when you knocked a hollow panel. Felt the pit in your gut and ripped it off. 

All taken between his escape from prison and when he broke into your apartment. He’d been stalking you the second he scaled those walls. 

“You fucking freak.” You don’t know whether to throw up or try to claw his eyes out. “You knew where I was the entire time you were out. And you were just, what? Watching me? Taking these fucking photos like some goddamn pervert?”

“I didn’t- I wanted- I couldn’t just come straight back, I had to know who you were, what your life was like-”

“I cannot believe you.” You shake your head, almost laughing. “I cannot fucking believe you.”

“I had to know where you were!” His voice raises, the sick desperation of this obsession exploding past that curated facade. 

Now you do laugh. 

“You think this is about you fucking stalking me?” You splay the photos out on the bed. “Jesus Christ Dex, you think that shocks me anymore?”

His eyes flick to the photos. 

“You kept these.” Your voice shakes now, with barely concealed rage. The images spread out over the bedspread make you sick. 

You walking home, uniform with gravy stains and wisps of hair escaping your ponytail and exhausted eyes flicking over your shoulder. 

You, graphite smudges on your fingertips, hoodie and sweats, empty coffee on the desk you sat at in the library, pulling an all nighter for a project that felt so important at the time. 

You, curled up on your couch with a cheap bottle of wine, fuzzy socks and red-rimmed eyes and a remote clutched loosely in your hand. 

You in your apartment through the window. You at work. You on the street. At school. Talking to friends. Smiling at the librarian. At home. Crying. Laughing. Staring into space. 

“Why did you take these?” You look at him, fix him with a stare that finally has him struggling to look at you. 

He says your name, unsure and unsteady and so unlike him. “I-”

“You get off on them, is that what this is?”

He blanches instantly, face twisting into disgust. “No. No, that's not what this is.”

“No?” Your voice raises to incredulousness. “So what are these?”

You pick out a section of the stack, tossing them at him. They hit him in the chest, and he doesn’t even react, letting them flitter to the floor, eyes flicking down just once, like he’s confirming, before going back to you. 

The steamy outline of your body in the shower, the tone of your skin barely visible through the glass. 

You asleep, curled on your side, the blankets slipped from your hip, just in a tank top and tiny sleep shorts. 

A shot zoomed in on the tendons of your neck, the dip of your collarbones beneath your shirt. 

You on your mattress with your head thrown back, hand between your legs. 

“I didn’t-”

“Didn’t what Dex?” You sneer. “Didn’t mean to? Didn’t take these and go jerk off to them in whatever shit hole you were hiding out in? Didn’t go the extra mile and steal my fucking panties too?”

“It wasn’t like that!” There’s no control now, something desperately human leeching into his voice. 

“Oh wasn’t it?” You scream back. “Don’t fucking lie to me.”

“I didn’t- I didn’t degrade you like that.” He’s fumbling, trying to find the words and there’s none, and he can’t just lull you into complacency, not anymore. 

You’d long since understood the violation that came with his invasion back into your life. You knew, logically, that he had stalked you. Found you. Probably waited for the perfect moment. He chased you across state lines for a fucking month. Told you to your face he watched you sleep in motels just for the sick thrill of it. 

But this? Sick tokens of what had happened stashed in the cupboard like a fucking secret? That wasn’t something you were just going to process. 

“Degrade me?” Your voice has risen to a shrill squawk. “You took pictures of me fucking masturbating in my bedroom Dex, and you kept them behind a fake wall in the fucking closet!”

He completely explodes. 

“I wanted all of you!”

You freeze. His chest is heaving, eyes wide, whites bloodshot, vein pulsing in his temple. 

“I was in that place and I couldn’t see you, I couldn’t hear you, I had four concrete walls and my hands fucking tied and all that shit in my brain and you were out there and I had no idea.” He runs a hand over his face, like he’s trying to physically pull himself together. “When I got out I was- baby I was a mess. I was angry and I was unstable and I was still half in that goddamn prison. I couldn’t go to you. I couldn’t touch you, and I couldn’t talk to you and I needed you so bad-”

He cuts himself off, head turning, hands fidgeting nervously at his sides. “These were all I could have. And I know- I got greedy and I invaded your privacy and I didn’t- I didn’t take them to gratify myself I just- God I wanted everything.”

You stand there for a second, your whole body vibrating with tension. He’s still, eyes still wide, just waiting, like he’s pulled his heart out and held it out, waiting to see if you slap it onto the floor. 

“You selfish, arrogant fuck.”

He blinks, taken aback. 

“You just take and take and take.” Everything just spills out, anger and betrayal and something a lot like the hurt of old love. “You have taken everything from me, and when I think there’s nothing left to give you just fucking cut pieces out of me like your love matters more than mine.”

Tears spill down your cheeks, warm and wet and sliding down your chin to soak the collar of your shirt. 

“You’ve just hollowed me out Dex, I’m a fucking shell of a person.” You wipe angrily at the tears. “I look in the mirror and I see a different fucking person looking back at me.”

His eyes are glassy, and in the warm light of the lamp you can see the tears welling up in them. See the clench, the pull of the tendon in his jaw. The shake in his core, a tiny tremor that you wouldn't have been able to see if you didn’t know what it felt like pressed against the palm of your hand. 

“I know.” He sounds like he’s in so much pain and you hate that it still hurts you too. “I’m so sorry.”

You scoff, water logged and exhausted. “Don’t-”

“No, I am.” He surges forward a little, almost unhinged in the desperation for you to hear him. “I know- I know I keep you and I won’t change it- but I’m still sorry. I still hate that I’m hurting you. I hate that I made you feel unsafe. I hate that you were looking over your shoulder expecting me there. I hate that you slept with the gun for protection from me. I hate it and I’m sorry and I know it doesn’t change a single thing I did.”

He takes a deep breath. “I love you, and I know I can’t love properly, or normally, or like you deserve, but I’ll try. It’ll get better, I’ll learn more. It’ll never be perfect but I won’t- fuck I’ll give you something better than this, and I won’t stop trying.”

You close your eyes against all of it. “You kept the fucking photos, Dex.”

“I’ll burn them, I’ll fucking get rid of them and no one will ever see them again.” He’s almost feverish, rushing through his words. 

“It’s too late to fix this!” You fling your hands up in desperation. There’s never been any point. You shouldn't have even brought up the photos, there was no fucking point. Nothing ever gets through the haze of his fucking delusion. “God Dex just fucking stop!”

“I just need you to understand-”

You lunge with a furious scream, launching yourself on top of him. His eyes widen in slight surprise, arms coming up to catch you and you crash against him. The two of you topple with the momentum of it all. 

If you can’t get him to hear the truth when you scream it, maybe you’ll just fucking choke it into him instead. Your hands wrap around his throat, squeezing as hard as you can. You feel it under your palms, the give, the weakness of his windpipe against the sinew of his neck. 

He makes an awful choking sound, some kind of a strangled grunt. 

He doesn’t throw you off. 

His hands are still resting on your waist where he caught you, his fingers tight, but they just hold, like he’s anchoring you on top of him while you’re strangling the life out of him. You’re straddling his stomach, bearing down all your weight into your hands. 

His face is turning steadily redder, then purple, veins bulging in his temple, his forehead, around his eyes. He’s making these garbled sounds, spit and desperate gasps for air. His whole body shudders, twitching, like he’s suppressing the instinct to end this. 

You grit your teeth and squeeze harder. 

The noises get louder, and you can’t tell if he’s crying or laughing or just dying. You're leaning over him, so close your foreheads brush. His eyes don’t leave yours, not for a second. You’re so focused you don’t even realise he’s smiling. 

A full grin, showing every one of his straight white teeth, now stained with the faint reddish hue of blood. Probably bit his cheek on impact with the floorboards. 

He’s definitely laughing. 

“Love…you.” He manages to choke out, and you grit your teeth and bare down harder and-

Oh God, you can’t do it. 

You let go instantly, dropping his neck like it’s burned you, scrambling off his outstretched body until your back slams into the bedframe. Your covering your mouth with your hands, the same ones you were choking Dex with and oh fuck you think you’re going to be sick.

He’s still flat on his back, limbs splayed on the floor. You’d think he was dead if you couldn’t see the deep, shaking rise and fall of his chest as he sucks in oxygen, or the blissed out expression on his face. 

Like he’s just gotten everything he’s ever wanted. 

Fuck. 

You were going to do it. You were actually trying to kill him. 

He feels it all, the fuzzy edges of consciousness you almost choked him out of, the hammering of his heart as it screams for oxygen, the throbbing in the back of his head, the taste of iron in his mouth, the smell of your shampoo. 

The weight of you on top of him, the press of your hands into his throat, the resolve in your eyes. 

No hesitation. Just instinct. Just you. 

The little moment you saw him, and you couldn’t go through with it. 

He’s going to have bruises in the morning, deep purple outlines of your hands wrapped around his throat. The thought makes his head spin, hot pulsing want tightening in his gut. 

He lifts his head slightly, to find you curled into yourself, pressed up against the bed frame. Your hands are tucked into your chest, horror and disbelief marring your pretty face. 

“Hey.” His voice is raspy. He peels himself up off the floor, head still foggy. He keeps low, crawling over to you. He doesn’t want to stand. 

He’d probably fucking pass out, but he’d also scare you. 

You can barely focus on him. You’re trying, eyes coming up to find his face, but they can’t stay, glazing over and drifting past him. 

He kneels next to you, hands cupping your face, pulling your gaze finally, totally to him. You let out a shaky exhale, and he can feel the fragility in your frame, the way you’re barely upright. 

“I-” You swallow roughly, eyes flicking away again. He swipes his thumbs under your eyes, tracing the firmness of your cheekbones. “I was trying to kill you.”

“Yeah.” He can’t keep the breathlessness out of his voice, the awe. You looked so beautiful on top of him, the decision was made, not a single glimpse of hesitation in the way your fingers squeezed into his larynx. “You did so well.”

“No.” Your voice wobbles horribly, splintering with guilt and something shaky. “I was going to kill you.”

He leans in, kisses your forehead, then your temple, pulling back to tuck the messy strands of hair that have fallen into your face behind your ear. You don’t flinch, but you don’t really react at all. Just sit there, shoulders curled, letting him. “That’s okay.”

“That’s not okay.” You sob. “I’m not- I’m not a murderer, I’m not you-”

“No.” Fuck he wants to kiss you so badly. He settles with pecks at your cheek, your temple, your hair. Something to soothe that inside of him. “You’re not me. I pushed you. You reacted. That’s okay.”

“I was strangling you.” Another hiccuping sob. “I didn’t even think I just- I just wanted to kill you.”

“I would’ve been okay, if you did.” He murmurs. “Baby, I’d deserve it.” 

The sound you make is a mix between a sob and a scream of frustration. You bury your face in your hands, slipping from his grip. 

“I know you deserve it.” Your voice is muffled by your palms. “It’s not about that.”

“I know.” He hums, nosing in your hair. “I know sweetheart.”

He tries to kiss in between your splayed fingers, find purchase on your browbone with his lips when he’s pushed back. Your hand is planted in his face, shoving him off you like you would a needy puppy. 

He almost laughs at the ridiculousness, fights the urge to kiss your palm and your fingers. The same ones that were just wrapped around his neck. 

“Get off.” You hiss, giving him a final shove. He lets you, lets himself be pushed back. 

He sits back on his heels, just watching you, head slightly tilted. You pull yourself up, scrubbing the remnants of tears with angry, harsh swipes. Lips set into a determined line. Like you’ll pull yourself together no matter the cost, so you don’t have to fall apart on him again. 

He’s proud. 

Slightly annoyed, yes. He wants you pressed into his chest, hands clutching his shirt. He wants his name breathed out in shaky, tearful syllables. 

But watching you confront him, and lunge at him with murder in your eyes and the straightness of your spine now, he loves it. Loves you. Loves the strength you carry even if no one else ever noticed. 

He did, camped out in stolen cars, watching you drag yourself to and from work every day, despite the exhaustion, despite the fear. He saw it from behind bookshelves at the university library, watching you spend hours on sketches and mock-ups and research, spine curved, jittery from caffeine. He saw it from in between your blinds, alone in your bed at night, shaking from nightmares you had to soothe yourself down from. 

“I hate you.” You say suddenly, staring at him, shaking your head. “For doing this to me.”

He doesn’t answer, for once. He knows you don’t want anything from him, you just want him to hear what you’re saying. 

You push your hair back with a sigh, glancing down at the photos littered around the two of them. 

“I shouldn’t have kept them.” Dex says. 

Not, I shouldn’t have taken them, or I shouldn’t have followed you.

He won’t lie to you. 

He shouldn’t have kept those, not now he’s got you back. 

You sniff, eyes tipping to the ceiling. “You shouldn’t have done a lot of things, Dex.”

“I’ll burn them.”

“Right.”

A pause. He’s trying to find the words. It’s hard sometimes, with you, because he cares, because he registers the impact of the things he says. You take the burden from him. 

“I told you I can’t do this my whole life.”

He nods. “I told you I can’t let you go.”

“Why?” You fling your hands in exasperation. “Why can’t you just stop.”

“I love you-”

“God Dex, I know that!” You pop up onto your knees, more animated than you’ve been for a while. “I know you loved me and I don’t understand how you can keep doing this knowing how much it fucking hurts.”

“This is love to me.” He tilts his head again, studying your face, every little reaction. “Keeping you safe, having you here with me.”

“Even if it kills me?” The same argument, the same plea. If only you knew. This isn’t what dying looks like. He sees it everyday. 

Your heart is beating and you're angry and disgusted and yelling at him and this is not death but something only as beautiful as life can be. He’d spend an eternity being hated if it meant you hating him. 

“I won’t let it kill you.”

You’re fucking hammered. 

Everything got too loud, the man, the memories, the photos, the feeling of being hunted through the woods, the feeling of his lips on your forehead, the feeling of your hands around his throat. 

You saw the bottle of red wine in the cupboard he uses to make pasta sauce and finished it. Just had the urge. 

Make it numb, buzz the edges to stop the sharp ache of it all. 

And now you’re propping yourself up on the edge of the bench while the whole kitchen swims around you. 

And it feels fucking amazing. 

Dex comes home and stops dead in the entrance, staring at you with a look of incredulousness on his face. 

“Are you drunk?”

You blink slowly, every movement disconnected and clunky. “Maybe.”

His eyebrows shoot up. He looks so stupid. “Maybe?”

You giggle, shrugging. “Maybe.”

“How much did you have to drink?” His duffel hits the ground with a thud, and he shrugs his jacket off. He’s wearing a fitted black T-shirt and dark cargo pants. The fabric strains when he crosses his arms over his chest. You follow it shamelessly. 

“You bulked up, in prison.” You sway, trying to stay focused. “You never used to be this fucking big.”

The concerned crease in his brows smooth into a wide smile. “Yeah? You noticed?”

You roll your eyes. He’s so damn pathetic sometimes. “”Course I fuckin’ noticed, you take up the entire doorway.”

“You like it?”

You watch him come over, plant his hands on the bench opposite you, face aglow with the warm downlight. You look at the broadness of his shoulders, the bulge of his biceps. 

“Mhm. I liked you back then too.”

Even in your drunken state, you regret the words the moment they slip out. His grin grows wider, like the Cheshire cat. 

“I know sweetheart.” He laughs. “Used to jump me before I even got in the door.”

You snort at the memory. 

“Did you have that entire bottle?” His attention shifts to the wine next to you on the counter. You shrug haphazardly. 

“Not telling.” 

If his eyebrows shoot up any higher they would disappear into his hairline. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

You hiccup, almost falling over as your balance tilts suddenly. You can see him jerk, flinch before you manage to right yourself. “Shit.”

“You are so drunk.”

“Yeah.” You lean forward, feeling the cold bench against your flushed cheeks. “Feels nice.”

“Mhm.” He’s still just watching you, braced against the bench. “Won’t feel nice tomorrow morning.”

“You’ll take care of me.” You mumble into the wood. You don’t register the pause, the way his eyes soften at the edges. The way you’re handing him everything. 

“You need to get to bed baby.” His voice is slightly strained. 

“No.” You whine, pushing yourself upright, everything spinning all over again, flush rising hot into your cheeks. “Wanna- wanna talk. Wanna not feel for a bit more.”

He looks down at you from across the counter, waiting. You sigh. 

“God- I miss sex. I miss sex with you. Do you- do you miss it? ” You try to point at him but it takes a little while for you to coordinate your finger with the target of the gigantic serial killer looming in front of you. 

He actually chokes. “What?”

“Do you miss it?” 

Dex clears his throat. “Uh-”

“Don’t lie about it.” You stumble, planting your hands back on the bench for stability. “I’m being honest, you have to be honest too.”

“Yeah.” He nods, looking a little terrified. “I miss it.”

You nod, already moving past it, like it doesn’t even matter. “I just want- I just want to feel something nice. I want it to not be so fucking complicated all the time. I just-”

You break off, shaking your head. “I want to feel something good and not have all this guilt all the time

“You don’t have anything to be guilty about.” He says it so easily. You narrow your eyes. 

“I think about you all the time, how you used to be, how much I loved you, how much I miss you, and then I think about all of it. Harper and all the people you murdered and the stalking and breaking into my apartment and taking my work and- and- and- fuck Dex.”

You can’t stop staring at him. At the sharp jawline you used to trace, and the lines gathered around the corners of his eyes, the jagged maw of a scar on his cheek, the way his lips settle into something mean, the brush of thick dirty blonde hair swept off his face, the greys at his temples. 

“What, sweetheart?” Something smug tugs at those familiar lips, as you falter. 

“I miss you.” You almost tangle up the words, too drunk to catch them as they fall. You can’t take it back once you say it. Especially not with Dex. 

No, he won’t let them hang there, float in the air. He’ll take them, tuck them away underneath his ribs so you can never get them back. Hold them close to his beating heart like they’re the ones giving him life. 

“Yeah baby?”

“Yeah.” God he looks so good. You’d never really just looked, never allowed yourself. You move, no conscious thought, not intention, just the want to be closer to him. 

You get maybe four steps before you trip over your own feet, bouncing off the bench and almost tumbling onto the floorboards. Dex obviously saw it coming, and catches you, those strong arms wrapping around your middle. 

You squeak as he lifts you back upright. You can feel the reverberation of his chuckles through the chest pressed against your back. 

“Jesus sweetheart, you are fucking plastered.”

He sets you down but you lean against him. He’s built like a fucking block of cement, and he smells like his cologne, the same type he wore when he used to come home from work and kiss you stupid. 

You wind your arms around his neck. His hands come up, more hesitant than you’re ever used to him being, settling on your hips, more to keep you upright than anything.  

“Baby-”

“Sh.” You tighten your arms, pressing your chest against his. “Don’t start your spiel right now.”

One of his hands slides up to the small of your back, pushing your stomach flat against his. The contact is nice, something you haven’t had in a long time. His big hand fits so nicely in the curve of your spine. 

You lean in and kiss him. Properly. You don’t let the storm of guilt and shame sweep you up. You don’t focus on anything except the warm press of his lips against yours, the familiar molding you’ve been without for years now. 

He makes a startled sound against you, which quickly turns into a throaty groan. He kisses you back like he’s a man starved, consuming everything you’re giving him and then more. 

He whispers your name against your lips when you both break for air. You’re breathing hard, so is he, massive chest heaving. You lean in again, hands sliding down his chest, finding purchase under the hem of his shirt. You slide your fingertips against the rigid muscles of his abdomen, feeling them tense and stutter under your touch. 

You try and kiss him again, but he leans back, grabbing your wrists to stop the wandering of your hands under his shirt. 

You stop. “What?”

He shakes his head, but he’s still panting, fingers spasming against your wrists like he’s wrestling himself into control. “Not like this.”

You feel like he’s just slapped you in the face. “Not- what? You don’t want me? You’ve seen me now and you don’t want me anymore?”

You can feel the walls closing in, the panic and the anger and the confusion bubbling up. 

He’s seen you scream and cry and become the evil that he is and now even Dex doesn’t want you. 

You were going to be alone forever. 

You can feel the tears welling in your eyes, the drunken emotional mess of your brain taking the rejection like it stung. 

“No.” He reaches for you again, wrapping his arms around your shoulders and upper back. “No baby, it’s not like that, you’re just drunk.”

You sink against him, head falling against his shoulder. 

“You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever had in my entire life.” He kisses your head, and you close your eyes at the soft, slow press of his lips. “And you’ll never forgive me, and you’ll never forgive yourself. 

He puts you to bed, tucks you onto your side and smooths the blankets over you. He doesn’t smirk when you cling onto his arm, doesn’t slip in a condescending little comment when he slides into bed next to you. He just lets you roll over him, arms seeking something warm and stable to hold on to as the entire bed spins. 

You wake up to painkillers and a glass of water on the bedside table. 

You take them.