Chapter Text
Dex's name had faded from the front page of newspapers, slowly, painfully. You didn't go to the trial, or the sentencing. Didn't even bother to mail in a victim impact statement to be read aloud. You didn't push when the police officer pulled you aside and told you there was no point in pursuing charges because they had enough to put him to death anyway.
You'd signed the protective order they'd offered, and left it at that.
It was supposed to have ended.
You tried to keep moving, to forget. Even though you'd wake up gasping for air with the feeling of his fingers pressing into your throat, even though you'd look over your shoulder walking home from work. Even though you bought a new chain lock and a door stopper and a gun that sat on your bedside table.
Dex might have still had a grasp on your life, but you were damn sure you weren't going to let him know that. You feigned indifference so yours wasn't another scalp he could savour, sitting alone in that cell, wherever the fuck he was.
You went back to college, part time- cheap community classes after dark, picking up credits for an architecture degree you'd wanted when you were bright eyed and naive. Worked double shifts at the diner to pay your rent so you wouldn't have to have roommates and people to wake up when you screamed.
It settles, like all things do. Calm, fragile layers that are just thick enough to disguise the rippling under the surface. The churning turmoil is mostly in your head now, anyway.
You're at work, ten hours into a sixteen hour split, stacking plates in the dish pit. Your coworkers are gossiping furiously over the clatter of the kitchen. Your manager Mary always takes a nap after her 9pm smoke.
"Can you believe how many fuckin' shootings we've had?" One asks incredulously, scraping a half-eaten pancake into the bin. "It's like we're living in fuckin' gotham."
"Every time they get one asshole, five more take their place." The other shakes his head, nudging you. "You remember the time the guy came in here with seven stab wounds? I couldn't believe that shit."
You snort. "And Mary tried to make me clean up the blood he left on the floor, like that's in my fucking job description."
He laughs, and your other co worker shakes her head. "This place is a goddamn shit hole."
"God it is, I still can't get over the fact that mass murderer used to eat here, imagine who else is just secretly a psychopath."
That you remember even better.
Dex up on a barstool leaning his forearms over the peeling counter. Black coffee. Easy smile. Well-fitting suit. He'd stop by occasionally, make small talk, tip well.
You thought he was just rich, some important guy from out of town who was a bit anal about routines and nice enough. God, you were so fucking stupid.
Your coworkers keep talking. They don't notice you staring at the pool of dirty water in the sink and wondering how easy it'd be to plunge your head in and not come up for air.
The walk from work is short, tense. Your neck cramps from whipping it over your shoulder in quick, panicked glances. You hear heavy footfalls behind you and feel hot breath on your shoulder and a dozen things that aren't thereand aren't real.
You know you meet the criteria for PTSD. You'd pulled out the DSM-5 from the library one late study night, when you were looking for any excuse not to do your essay.
It doesn't matter. You can't afford therapy, and it'd involve having to say what happened to you out loud.
To use those words.
Stalker. Victim.
They're barely manageable in your head, when you're brave enough to think about it. You couldn't even muster up the courage to write it down.
You triple check the locks on your doors, finally sinking into the warm embrace of your apartment. The paranoia never really goes, but it ebbs, here, in the warm flickering lamp-light, in the orange tang of your citrus candles, in the soft down of the blankets that shield you from outside.
It's the same routine, rip the uniform off and toss it in the hamper. Scrub off the old makeup in the shower and let your wet hair air dry because you're too lazy to blow dry it. Cocoon yourself in the safety of soft, worn pyjamas and a show you've seen a million times before.
It's all the same until your phone rings.
It's late. Your family only calls on holidays. The few friends still in contact only text. You snatch up the phone, brow furrowing at the familiar combination of numbers.
It only clicks when you hear the voice on the other line saying your name.
"Detective Harper?" You ask, confused.
"Yes. I'm sorry to call so late."
His voice is clipped, slightly out of breath. Ruffled.
The same man who told you they won't press charges but it was okay because Dex was never going to get out anyway. The man who filed the paperwork for a protection order so Dex couldn't send you mail from prison. The man who laid a heavy hand on your shoulder while you broke down in the police station, stammering your way through the story that barely sounded real.
"What- is everything okay?" Your voice trembles.
He sighs heavily. "I'm not- I'm not supposed to tell you this. The information is suppressed and you're not officially listed as a victim so there's no legal obligation-"
He cuts himself off as you let out a shaky breath.
"You have a right to know." He finishes. "I thought you should know."
"Know what?"
You already know. You'd known when your stomach sunk through the floor, the moment you placed the voice on the other end of the line. You'd known since your hand started shaking. Since the bile started rising in the back of your throat.
"He- he got out." The usual deep, even tenor of the detectives voice wavers. Guilt. Exhaustion. A mix. He seems to pull himself together. "Poindexter escaped prison tonight, killed a doctor and a few guards. We don't where he is right now, or where he's going."
"Wh- what am I supposed to do?"
"Stay low, stay home. Call me if you see anything, don't call 911. They'll treat it as a hoax call, chief wants it under wraps. He might just be getting out of town, we don't know." He sighs again. "I'm sorry honey."
You almost collapse when you hang up the phone.
The next days don't seem to register. You don't sleep, just lay awake, curled up on your side with your gun clutched in your hand, staring at the shifting moonlight against your curtains, feeling the weight against your palm.
You're like a ghost at work. Silent, robotic, going through the motions rooted deeply in your brain while everything else spirals. Your coworkers ask if you're okay, and all you can muster is a shrug, eyes trained on the floor. Mutter an excuse about not sleeping well. You show up to classes just to not hear a word your professor says, sketching lines that don't connect to keep your hand busy.
You don't remember making it home until you slide the last lock in place, blinking back into your body. Even then, you spend most of your time staring at the bouncing logo on the TV.
It's almost like your brain's recessed, hidden away to protect you from the raw, undiluted fear the news should have sent pulsing through your body. Like your nervous system couldn't handle the spike and the best thing to do is not feel at all.
His name comes back to the front pages, big bold lettering that screams out from the corner stores. It's spoken out loud again, conversations between strangers on the street, on the subway, customers in their booths.
Maybe Detective Harper was right, maybe he fled somewhere else, got out of the city and found somewhere to lie low.
That's what you'd like to believe, but deep down, you know him too well.
Maybe you should have known something was off when you stepped into your apartment. Maybe you're looking for ways this could have been anything other than it was.
You throw your bag carelessly on the table, stumbling around the dark kitchen, fumbling for the light switch on the wall. Everything aches, your feet, your back, your ass from sitting in that classroom after a long day of work.
A large hand wraps around your mouth and everything stops cold.
You scream against the palm, struggling forward. Another familiar arm wraps around your stomach and slams you back into something solid, warm.
"Sh baby."Dex's lips brush your ear, his voice back in your head. You try to scream louder, hands coming up to pry his off your face.
He laughs when you dig your fingernails into his hand, and it rings straight through your bones, the ghost of his breath against the bare crook of your neck. You try and kick him in the shin, writhing around against the steel of his grip.
He tightens his arm around you, keeping you firmly pressed up against his chest. "Stop fighting."
You bite down on the meat of his hand, slipping your teeth in between his thumb and index finger. The only reaction you feel is the tense of his muscles against your back. He lets you struggle for a few moments before he acts.
Dex yanks you backwards, swinging the both of you around and tipping you so you collide with the wood of your dining table. He leans over you, covering you with his body and keeping your chest pinned down. Your hands are trapped under the combined weight of both of you, and he keeps your legs wedged between his.
"Baby, come on." His breathes hard, and God you thought you were out, that you were free. He smells different, cheap laundromat detergent and sweat, feels more solid, more dangerous. His voice has the harsh scrape of something unhinged that wasn't there before. "I'll kill anyone who comes up here to help you, you know that."
You let out a furious sob, spit smearing across his hand and your face. The faint taste of his blood in your mouth is violent, repulsive. You buck again but you barely shift an inch, and then sag against the table.
You feel his lips curve into a smile against your neck. "There we go."
Slowly, he releases his palm from your mouth, standing up and pulling you with him. You find yourself being walked to the couch, lowered down with a hand on the small of your back.
You just collapse. You don't even look at him, just fold, bury your face in your hands and press your head into your knees. The only noise you can make are the shaky, stuttering sobs that escape you, tears pouring from your eyes.
You can feel him moving, hear him crouch down next to you.
He was always so fucking gentle.
"I'm not gonna hurt you." He breathes, stroking your hair. "I promise."
"Y-you weren't supposed t-to get o-out." You sob, shaking. "W-why are you here? Why c-can't you just leave m-me alone?"
He ignores you, fingers still brushing your scalp. Soft, rhythmic, soothing. Like he can lull you into calm. "Sh, it's okay. It's okay."
Eventually you run out of tears, and the sobs turn into silent, shaking breaths. You don't look up, you don't dare, don't want this nightmare to become reality when you open your eyes.
"You know." He starts, voice rough. "They gave me 127 charges total, and the one thing that hurt the most was that fucking restraining order you got taken out against me."
You knew it was coming. You'd agreed to it because Detective Harper was so convinced that you needed something, some kind of justice. You'd also known Dex was neurotic enough to sift through the mountain of shit he was in and find that one little thing and hold on.
You sniff, lifting your head. He looks meaner, leaner. You still can't get over the thick scar on his cheekbone, no matter how many times you've seen the mugshot in the paper. His eyes are more hollow, darker, sharp enough to cut through you. His light brown hair is damp at the edges with sweat, pushed off his face. He's in clean clothes, a pair of loose fitted pants and a white shirt.
Normal. If he wasn't a mass murderer. If he hadn't broken into your apartment after escaping a maximum security prison.
"I didn't-" Your voice breaks. "The police filed it."
He hums under his breath, taking the information, savouring it. "And the thing is I would never have stooped that low. I don't need to taunt you with fucking prison mail and phone calls like some scumbag desperate for attention. I know I'm already in there."
He taps your temple, finger lingering against your skin. "It's the fact they thought that piece of paper meant anything. Like a court order stops you being mine."
The words raise every hair up on the back of your neck. You'd spent the entire time clawing back pieces of your identity from him and he's just back here and erasing every bit of your hard work in a blink of an eye.
You don't look away from him. It's not fear that fills you, not anymore. The suspense is gone, the horror of what could be is no longer just an imagination. He's here now. Dread and exhaustion are what pour in instead.
You were never really afraid of him, when it comes down to it. Afraid of going through it all again, maybe. And now everything has been snatched away from you that fear doesn't need to exist anymore. You've lived through this enough to know he won't hurt you.
He'll just erase you.
Consume you.
"Why didn't you just run?" You ask. You want to ask him why did you come back for me? You want to scream it. But you don't, because you don't want him to say the answer you both know out loud, where you can't hide from it.
His eyes scan your face, flittering side to side, searching for something, cataloguing every detail. He's still on one knee, back hunched, leaning toward you like a shield, like he's protecting you and not the threat you're recoiling back from.
He doesn't answer that either and you think it might be his version of kindness.
He stands up, drawing to full height and you instantly shrink back into the cushions, watching him pace around your apartment. Not manic, just measured, quiet steps while he looks through what your life is now.
Because of course he does, of course he invades the only sanctuary you had, the only space that felt safe enough to sleep, to let your guard down. He's probably been in here before, probably knows every single inch of this place.
You realise your phone is in your pocket when he disappears into your bedroom, feel the blunt edges pressing into your thigh. You grab it, hastily searching for the name of the one man who believed you.
Detective Harper does not pick up his phone. It silently rings on and on, as the pounding in your chest and head grow louder and louder. You can hear Dex in your bathroom now, and you're fucking praying Harper picks up his damn phone.
You hear the tiny drone of his voicemail.
Detective Harper. Leave a message.
"He's here." You whisper. "In my apartment. I need-"
"He won't answer you, baby." Dex's voice shakes you. You let out a half-scream, dropping your phone as your whole body flinches. He circles the couch, plucking it from the cushions and hanging up.
You feel sick.
"Saw his name on the paperwork they served me when I was already locked up for a fucking life sentence. No possibility of parole." He almost sings the last words, like it's a funny joke, slips your phone into his pocket. "Couldn't sign them because they kept my hands locked up. You know what they said to me? That he personally requested they tell him what I looked like when I saw your signature on that paper."
There's a lump in your throat, like a rock was wedged in your windpipe. You can barely breathe.
"You'd told him everything, and he took pity on you, didn't he? The one idiot that wasn't smart enough to pretend he didn't believe you. He's a grumpy asshole, but he's got a soft spot the size of the sun baby, I couldn't tell you the amount of cases he'd push through to head office for a second look because some girl with wide eyes cried in his office."
You press your lips together. "You think I told him anything but exactly what you did to me?"
He smiles, the kind that shows off all his teeth, like a fucking shark. He's missing one, knocked out judging by the bloodied gum. "Oh I know you did. Probably why he was so hellbent on making sure I couldn't get you from my jail cell."
"What did you do, Dex?" You're trembling so bad your voice wavers.
"I killed him, flushed his phone. But I made sure to tell him where I was going right before I did it. You know he begged me to leave you alone? Begged baby, not for his life, not to be spared, for you."
You cover your mouth with your hand to stop yourself from vomiting. More tears well in your eyes. He's dead, because of you, because you opened your mouth, because you thought a life sentence meant you were safe.
Dex kisses the top of your head, shushing you softly. "It's okay, it was quick, I promise."
You can't speak, you don't trust yourself too. Your throat has seized up, you feel like you can barely breathe. Dex makes a low sound against your head, vibrations rumbling against your scalp.
"You didn't even come to the courtroom. I thought you would. I thought you'd want to see me get put away for life."
He lets go enough to let you sit up. There's an undercurrent of smugness that unsettles your nerves, like he's gloating. You swallow some of the shock and let the anger buzz underneath your skin.
"I was hoping you'd get the death penalty."
His grin widens. "So were a lot of people baby, and how'd that work out?"
"You could get out of New York, why are you here tormenting me?"
He sits down next to you, elbows braced on his knees, leaning forward. His eyes never leave yours.
"Why didn't you come?"
You just blink, in horror. "You show up here, you murder an innocent man, just to what? Ask me why I didn't come to your fucking sentencing? Why I didn't want to give you the goddamn satisfaction of including me in your list of victims?"
"Is that what you think you are?" His voice is soft, quiet, deadly. You stop for a second, chest heaving as everything you've been shoving down makes a break for the surface. "Another victim on my list?"
You snap your mouth shut. His eyes are wide, open, hands slowly sliding towards yours, which are resting in your lap. Just a few centimetres at a time, like they're drawn by a force he can't control. You ignore it for now. He shakes his head.
"You weren't- you weren't like them. I didn't start this to hurt you."
"But you didn't care if I got hurt." You let him see the disgust openly written across your face. "It didn't matter that you ripped apart my entire life, as you long as you got what you wanted, right?"
"I hurt you." He nods, and the admission was always supposed to mean more. He casts it out like it's some tidbit of information he's throwing away, like it's nothing, like it's easy. "And you're right, I did what I wanted without caring what happened in your life. But it's not like them, okay? I hurt them because I liked it, because their pain fuelled something in me, because their deaths gave me something. And it isn't the same as you."
"You think because you didn't get off on what you did to me that it makes all the damage you've done okay?"
"Baby-"
"No. No, I never wrote that victim statement because I didn't want to give you the satisfaction of knowing what you did to me, but I have been caring this shit around for months of my fucking life and you are going to listen before you destroy everything all over again."
Your heart pounds so loudly you can barely hear his response.
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay. Tell me."
Your breath stutters. He's so calm. He's always been calm. Unhinged. Ruthless. On-edge. You'd seen him lose it a few times. But apart from those moments, calm. In control. You've always hated it, hated feeling irrational when you were fighting for your freedom and your life.
"You took everything from me." You whisper it, because saying it too loud is too painful. "My friends, my family, my goddamn sanity. I was going insane. You were supposed to be my boyfriend Dex, you were- fuck- I thought you were the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with and then you come home bloody in the middle of the night and I- how am I supposed to react?"
He's silent, just watching, eyes boring through you while it all unravels. He's always let you mouth off to him, but you've never wanted him to know what you felt. Not like this.
"You stalked me. You isolated me from the people in my life who lovedme, you destroyed these relationships that made me happy and I can never get them back. You made me fucking paranoid. And then you held me hostage. It doesn't matter that you weren't chaining me down and locking the doors Dex, because I couldn't leave, I couldn't live, I couldn't exist outside of you."
His fingers twitch against his thighs but he doesn't react. You can tell how much he's holding back, the effort required to keep the mask in place. You take a deep breath.
"Then they arrested you. And I was stupid, went to the police station and told them everything because I finally fucking free and that's what they tell you to do, right? And everyone thought I was just some mental case desperate for attention. Harper gave a shit enough to listen, and he gave a shit enough to try, and you killed him."
Your voice cuts off in a squeak, chest heaving. "I have spent every day while you were in prison trying to rebuild my life from the ruins you left behind and you're just going to rip it all down again, aren't you?"
He blinks, still silent, still listening, head tilted in that curious way that makes your blood run cold. Something snaps.
"Aren't you?" Your voice rises.
He says your name in that soft tone. Your voice raises higher.
"Are you Dex? Is that why you're here? To do this to me again?"
"I love you."
"This is not love." You almost laugh at the absurdity of it. "This is obsession and the fact you can't handle letting me go. This is ego and psychopathy and nothing to do with love. You're not capable of love."
"I always protected you-"
"Until you showed up to our apartment covered in someone else's blood."
"It was a mistake."
"Killing whoever's blood that was wasn't."
"No-"
"It was always going to happen Dex, you can't be a fucking hitman and expect that I'm not going to find out eventually."
"You weren't supposed to find out like that. I didn't mean for you to see that."
"Do you honestly think that you were going to somehow make me okay with that?"
"I don't know." He admits. "I was trying to have both at once. I didn't want to think about what would happen with the two sides of my life collided."
"If you had told me, and I reacted the same-" you sit up straight, arms wrapped around yourself like a protective barrier. "Would you have still done what you did?"
He's silent for a while, watching, barely blinking. "Probably."
"Yeah." You nod, the lump growing back in your throat.
"I didn't want to hurt you." His eyes are red rimmed.
"But you're still here." Your voice doesn't break above a whisper.
He sighs, straightening up too, leaning back into the cushions with an easy familiarity that makes your stomach churn. "Yeah baby, I'm still here. I'm selfish, and I'm cruel and I love you."
"Please don't."
"I know. I know." He coos, reaching for you. His arm stretches out across the back of the couch, resting just behind your neck and shoulders. His knees nudges yours. Bodies drifting back into an orbit you thought could never return. "I know you don't want this."
"Then leave."
He brushes a loose strand of hair off your face, eyes locked onto yours. "I can't."
You let him drape a blanket around you on the couch as your eyes eventually fall, heavy and half-lidded. Watch his silhouette settle in the arm chair across the rug, elbows resting on his knees. Watching.
He's there when you wake up. It's odd in the sunlight, like he's monster that should only come out in the dead of night. Instead he's frying something in your kitchen, back to you. You sit up, blinking the last bit of blurriness from your eyes.
Your gun lies disassembled on the bench, clip empty and detached. Dex can obviously hear you moving.
"Planning on shooting me sweetheart?"
He only calls you that when he's being an asshole. You don't have the energy to respond immediately, just sit up straighter, taking in everything around you. Remembering everything from the previous night. You're still in your clothes, rumpled and creased, hair a mess.
You rub your eyes, burying your face in your hands. It's all hitting.
Dex in your new apartment.
Harper dead.
"Stop. Please." Your voice is raspy. "Just stop."
Dex gives you a soft breathy huff in response, and you hear him scraping the pan, the smell of sizzling bacon finally reaching you. Your stomach churns viciously, its contents threatening to make a reappearance on the floor.
"You need to eat."
"No." You mumble into your palms. "Stop it Dex."
"You didn't have dinner last night."
You let out something like a sob crossed with a defeated laugh. He gave you a few hours before it started all over again, the way his presence feels like you're being strangled.
"You're not looking after yourself."
"Stop."
"You bought a gun and you don't even know how to use it, it was loaded with the safety off on your bedside table."
"Dex."You finally lift your head from your hands, staring at him with a pleading look in your eye.
He says your name back to you, mocking your tone.
You don't bother arguing because it'll get you exactly nowhere. He softens when you roll over for him, always has.
"You're studying again." He says, like a peace offering. "You were always so good at it. I'm glad you went back."
You went back to find something to move you forward, because he was always dragging you back into the past. Something to escape the memories, and the nightmares, and the same mind-numbing routine of work, eat and sleep. You don't say any of it because it isn't his victory to claim.
"It doesn't matter now." You'd cry if you weren't exhausted down to your bones. His brows knit together, melding into the little crease that's always sat there, the one lining his right eyebrow.
"Your life isn't over because I'm back in it, baby." He says, so gentle. He was always so good at that. The voice. The way he sounds so soft and could still put a bullet in your head without blinking.
You snort, ungainly, almost so inappropriate for the situation that you're in that you shock yourself. "Don't start lying to me. I'm not stupid enough for it to make me feel better."
"You're not stupid." Same tone that makes you want to scream. "I'm not taking college from you. I won't take your work."
"There's always a price I have to pay, Dex."
"I will be back in your life." He turns back to the pan, sliding the bacon out and onto a plate. "No price, but you sure act like a damn martyr about it."
Oh, he was really being an asshole. Baiting you maybe, picking a fight so you show that you give a shit, rather than what you are, a burnt out woman with nowhere left to go.
Broken.
"I don't want you in my life."
"You don't take care of yourself."
"So? I can find someone who will. I don't want you."
You rose to the bait. You can't fucking help yourself sometimes.
He rises to yours. Far too fast.
The pan slams back onto the stove with a loud clatter, spatula spinning onto the floor. He whips around, stalking over to you with burning eyes. You back up, shuffling into the cushions, heart picking up instantly.
You'd always do it, back then. Take it too far, hit his pressure points deliberately and watch him spiral. Stupid and desperate and trying to make him feel anything, a tiny portion of what he was inflicting on you.
But now? This was reckless. He'd been in prison, he'd snapped and killed a lot of people and you didn't know him now, not like you did. Unpredictability was the most dangerous part and Dex was completely unhinged.
He plants his hands either side of you, caging you between the couch and his body. He leans down, right in your face, eyes wide.
"There will never be anyone else." He hisses, and you can see the white glow of his knuckles as he clenches the fabric. "You fucking know that."
"I don't want you."
"I don't care." He leans in even further, your noses a hair from brushing. "Quite frankly sweetheart, I couldn't give a shit about what you think you want. There's no one else in the picture, you think I haven't been watching? You think I didn't find you the moment I got out of prison? You think I didn't go to sleep every night in that empty fucking cell thinking about you?"
"Leave me alone." You keep shrinking, trying to escape how close he is, how tense.
"No." He follows you, leaning in so far he puts one knee up on the couch beside your legs. "You don't want that, not really. You stayed baby, for so long. We were good together, and we'd still have been good if you didn't find out. We can be good again."
"I want to be free."
"You can't." He whispers, finally leaning his forehead against yours, and sighing like a man returning home. He kisses your temple, quick, desperate, like he can't be that close and hold himself back, before resting his head back against yours. "You can't handle it baby."
Those elusive tears slip down your face, hot and stinging. Every single bit of fight has drained out of you as you watch the walls close in, the leash tighten. Dex grabs your jaw, angling your face up to his.
"M' never letting you go, okay?" He says it like a love confession, devotion so heavy in his eyes he almost looks harmless. "You think a restraining order was going to stop me? A fucking army couldn't."
You close your eyes when he finally kisses you.
It's easier.