Chapter Text
“One good deed, Devil,” Dex rasps. He’s shaking minutely, and not just from blood loss. It’s cold in the tunnel, and Matt is illuminated from behind by the sparse, blue lights overhead. It casts him in an eerie light, like he really is his namesake and has come to claim Dex’s soul for his crimes. Dex wouldn’t mind. He’s tired. “If I killed Vanessa, then Foggy’s death—”
Matt’s gloved hand shoots forward and grabs Dex by the throat. The force of it slams Dex’s skull against the brick wall, and the lenses of Matt’s mask seem to glow red with anger in the dimness. He squeezes Dex’s windpipe and pushes him, bracketing him with his body. His mouth is twisted in hatred.
“Don’t. You don’t get to say his name.”
Dex doesn’t fight back. It’s all he can do to draw in labored breaths through his mouth as Matt inches closer, maddeningly closer, until they share the same precious pocket of air between them. Up close Dex can see the braided fibers of his suit of armor, the scuffs along its edges, the soft nylon tissue between blackened plates. He smells of sweat. He smells of the city and of man and of, somewhere underneath, of soap.
He’d been watching Matt for weeks, now, observing from a distance here and there through the lens of a rifle or binoculars. Matt didn’t often leave his hideout as “Matt”, anymore, not since Fisk had plastered his face across New York in a bid to flush him out. He almost always left the dusty hideout (the Punisher’s hideout) clad in his suit, stalking across rooftops and slinging himself with enviable ease through the neon buzz of the night. Dex never got too close—the Devil was far too perceptive to do so. But Dex kept an eye on him, anyways, studying him, cataloging how he reacted and interacted with the people around him. Most often, it was Karen Page he interacted with as Dex clinically observed through a window.
Matt squeezes again, and Dex is thrown back to the present, choking on his own saliva.
“Do you understand?”
Dex grins. Yes, he understands, but is Dex sorry for what he’s done? He doesn’t know. He’d stolen a bible from one of the church pews at Clinton Church and read a great deal of it, flipping through its wafer-thin pages under the light of the shitty bedside lamp he owned. Repentance doesn’t make a damn bit of sense to him. What’s the good in feeling sorry if you’re not going to fix it? Now, penance, the repair of your misdeeds…? Dex understands. The wicked man may balance the scales for his transgressions. Matt must understand. He must, because Dex knows deep down that Matt is the only person in this ruin of a world that understands him.
Dex leans forward into Matt’s hand, and though Matt’s eyes are covered and his mouth still works a snarl, Matt hesitates. He must be able to feel Dex’s lungs straining, his blood flow flagging, all his facilities weakening as Dex presses further into Matt’s outstretched hand.
“Stop that,” he snarls. He shoves Dex back.
“If I—” Dex coughs weakly, “if I killed Vanessa, then it’s done. I’m done. I’ve atoned.”
“Atoned?” Matt says incredulously. He hand spasms on Dex’s neck like he’s physically restraining himself from painting the walls with his brain matter. Dex is dizzy with the prolonged contact, the drag of leather between the cartilage rings of his windpipe. The pain feels like absolution.
“God may forgive you. But I never will.” Matt’s gravelly voice tears Dex in half. “You’re not good, Dex, and reading the fucking bible won’t change what you’ve done.”
Dex bares his teeth in a painful smile. He wonders if Matt knows this, or if this weak defiance is just for himself. “Then kill me.” He pushes forward again, only to be slammed back. “Kill me before the AVTF gets down here and drags us both to hell.”
Matt shakes his head fiercely.
“You’re fucking insane,” he hisses. “I don’t know what to do with you.” His breath ghosts along the blood-crusted side of Dex’s neck. Dex shivers at its warmth. Maybe it’s the blood loss. Maybe it’s the searing jealousy that worms its way up his stomach whenever Matt smiles softly at Karen in their room. Maybe it’s animal and senseless, the way Dex nods his head to the side, brushing his clean-shaven jaw against Matt’s stubbled one, just to feel human in that murky tunnel. Matt—Daredevil—freezes, jaw clenched so tightly the bruised masseter casts a shadow. Dex does it again, firmer, this time, tracing their jaws together like he’s sharpening a knife on a whetstone. Matt breathes heavy through his nose, still gripping Dex’s neck like it’s the only thing tethering him to the face of the Earth.
Dex feels what restraint he has bleed out of him. He opens his mouth and licks along Matt’s jaw. Karen does this, sometimes, when she wants to tease Matt. He tastes of dust and salt.
Matt punches Dex in the stomach hard enough that Dex sees stars. He slides down the wall with a pained groan, clutching at the towel at his side like it’s not already completely soaked through with blood. Dex closes his eyes, focusing on the inhale and exhale of his breath, the seizing of his muscles, the roaring in his head, the viscous desire for Matt to do it again. He expects Matt to leave. Instead, Matt slams the wall with his fist, aflame with frustration.
“Wh’ next, couns’lor?” Dex wheezes after a moment. Matt pauses, jaw clenched in thought.
“We’re leaving.”
“Can’t.”
“Get. Up. They found the kitchen.”
“No.”
Matt, somehow, yanks Dex to his feet, draping his larger frame over his shorter, stockier one. Dex doesn’t remember another damn thing until they reach Matt’s hideout.
Karen wants to kill him. The look in her pale eyes is enough to convince Dex that she’d do it herself in a heartbeat. Matt can’t explain himself to her, keeps repeating “I couldn’t leave him to die” like a mantra, like it absolves him of the sin of bringing a filthy killer into their home.
She leaves, hissing something into Matt’s ear before slamming the door behind her.
“Doesn’t like me so much,” Dex slurs.
“I don’t like you,” Matt snaps. He drags Dex further into the room, past the worn heavy bags and haphazard kitchen. The bed with its stripey sheets is to the left, but Matt tosses Dex on the couch like a bad dog before leaving. The gentle hum of the subway rumbles somewhere nearby. Dex is vaguely aware that he smells terrible. If he concentrates, he can hear Matt rustling around, echoing off tile in a bathroom somewhere.
“Don’t fall asleep. Or do, I don’t care,” Matt mutters, appearing in Dex’s periphery. It’s like a shot of adrenaline straight to Dex’s nervous system—Matt’s taken his cowl off, is frowning in displeasure. His hair is a tousled mess over his tall forehead, and his eyes are so brown they’re black in the low light, scrunched up in unfocused irritation.
“Stop staring. Show me.”
Dex flops his head back down.
“Clipped a rib. Inside. Hurts like a bitch.”
Matt flips open whatever kit he got from the bathroom before Dex realizes he’d taken off his gloves. He is going to touch me. He is going to—
“Don’t flinch.” Matt extends his hand towards the wound, traces the ragged hole in the suit where the bullet tore through. The slight pressure of his hand is enough that Dex’s heartbeat quickens, then gallops when Matt yanks the fabric open none too gently.
Dex feels the coarse fibers of medical gauze pat around the wound, sopping up the drying blood around the puckered skin. Matt pours saline onto the pad and scrubs a little harder where the blood has crusted to his ruined suit. Dex follows every practiced movement as Matt sets the saturated gauze aside. His fingers return to Dex’s skin, tracing the outline of the wound lightly like he’s committing it to memory.
Dex growls deep in his throat as Matt probes the hole. He swears Matt cocks his head, like he’s listening for something, before the tip of his index finger breaches the wound in a thunderclap of pain. Dex chokes in surprise, hands fisting on the shitty couch cushions as his body tightens and curls in the familiar dichotomy of pain and the relief of feeling anything at all.
“Devil,” Dex says quietly. It sounds like a plea.
Matt’s finger is still inside him. It feels hot, like a cigarette extinguished inside his body. He’s silent, judging, lips a thin line of concentration and resolve. Dex could reach forward and pull Matt out of him, could hit him, could do anything, but then Matt crooks his finger and Dex moans, long and low and desperate.
“God, you’re pathetic,” Matt whispers. Dex shudders, eyes-half lidded. “Why do you keep coming back?”
He bookends the question with the slow retreat of his finger, sliding across the ruined flesh in a bright red smear. Dex’s whole body whines at the loss of contact.
“Answer me.”
“You,” Dex rasps. “Always you.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
They sit silently for a moment, teetering on the edge of something terrible.
Then Matt grabs a fistful of Dex’s hair and pulls him up to meet his mouth, all teeth and tongue and fury. Dex’s scalp burns with how Matt holds him, and he relishes it, laughing into Matt’s mouth as their split lips reopen and they paint each other’s mouths with blood. Matt’s strong, so strong, and Dex is floating on the edge of consciousness as he thumbs harshly over Dex’s neck, pressing and pausing whenever Dex’s breath rumbles out of his bruised ribcage.
Matt’s grip loosens, and it’s enough for Dex to escape, to mouth down his jaw and bite harshly on the sliver of exposed neck above Matt’s collar. For that, Matt grabs his hair again and snaps his head back with a snarled admonishment, before doing the same to him. Dex hopes distantly that the bite marks will stay long enough for Karen to see them, to know that her righteous hero has been brought down to his level.
The couch creaks with age as Matt flips himself on top of Dex from his position on the floor. They’re both still wearing their suits, but Matt moves fluidly in his as if he’s not wearing a full set of thick body armor. The weight crushes Dex into the cushions, fully at the mercy of the devil, bleeding and ugly in his wickedness. He feels more in this moment than all the times he’d smiled at strangers, snuck into mass, or fed his neighbor’s cat. He feels human in this moment, pressed against the man who hates him most in this world.
Dex grunts as Matt settles his knees on either side of Dex, boxing him in with kevlar and muscle. Matt ducks down and grabs another wad of gauze and presses it none too gently to Dex’s wound, which has started to weep and bubble again. Dex scrabbles at Matt’s arm, pulling him down, but Matt bats him away.
“You’ve lost too much blood. I’m not doing that again.”
Dex lets out a frustrated growl and bucks his hips up into Matt’s violently. Matt places a firm hand on Dex’s hips, lowering his face to the shell of Dex’s ear.
“Stop it.”
Dex whips his head to the side and sneers. “Then get on with it.”
Matt draws himself up, weight braced on Dex’s sternum in a bruising restraint. His lips are parted, red and shiny, and he flicks his tongue across his teeth absentmindedly like he’s savoring the taste of Dex’s blood. He looks like God, Dex thinks. He looks like salvation.
Matt slots one of his knees between Dex’s, brings it forward until it nudges up against Dex’s crotch. He adjusts his hands—one to brace on the arm of the couch, one to settle furiously gently over Dex’s throat again, to revisit the bruises he’d made there not an hour ago.
“Be good.” Matt mutters simply. He presses his knee into Dex a little harder. Dex is suffocating under Matt’s full attention, like the man has flayed him open and is picking through the filth of his past right before him.
Dex’s mouth parts and he lets out a tiny, unseemly whimper. Be good. His torso is on fire and his head swims with exhaustion, but his hips cant forward anyways, seeking friction above all else. He ruts slowly, at first, trailing his clothed erection up and down Matt’s thigh, feeling in extreme detail all the seams and juts of the suit. Matt stares down at him, expressionless, hand hot on Dex’s windpipe. Dex hopes he can hear the inner workings of his body, now, the flood of hormones and spiking blood pressure, the fuzzy, haphazard firings of conscious thought as he pursues his most basal instinct. Dex grabs Matt’s arm to brace himself, digging into the flesh beneath the armor in a desperate bid to press harder onto Matt. The devil allows it, cocks his head at the sounds that Dex fails to suppress in the otherwise silent room.
“There’s nobody here,” Matt says, like he can read Dex’s mind.
Dex groans in response, sliding his hips faster. It’s painful and awkward, and he’s ruining his suit, but Matt is looking at him, really looking at him in his own remarkably perceptive way, and Dex can’t bring himself to give a damn. Kiss me again, he wants to say. Instead, he feels a hot tear run down his face and join the sweat on the pillow beneath him as he grunts on his upthrusts. The gauze Matt had pressed to Dex’s side has peeled off, and Dex can feel warmth trickling down his side and soaking into the couch cushion. Dex hopes it’ll stain.
The hand Dex is gripping Matt’s arm with moves upward of its own accord, and Dex finds himself clinging to the back of Matt’s neck, pulling at him with mindless desperation. Matt resists at first, but dips his head down eventually—not to kiss, nothing so delicate—but to breathe in the garbled noises Dex makes, to more completely experience the crumbling of his composure.
For this, Dex is grateful. He can, though the cracks in his delirium, see every eyelash on Matt’s face, the furrow of his thick eyebrows, the way his hair sways in damp locks in front of his face, the press of his tongue behind his teeth and lips. Dex finds the short hairs at the base of Matt’s skull and rakes his blunt nails through them, feeling the steel-coiled tension of his muscles tense at the pressure.
The hand on his neck squeezes as Matt shifts further forward. His thigh is better-angled now, less uncomfortably vertical. Dex barks a weird laughing, groaning sound, pistoning his hips faster, lightheaded and drowning. The couch sounds like it’s about to break beneath them. Dex’s back is drenched with sweat, and he feels as though he might actually be about to die, here, beneath the one man who has ever looked at Dex and seen him for the creature he is, for the creature he could be.
Distantly, Dex is aware of a small noise, a wet gasping that is punched from his chest. It doesn’t even sound like him, anymore. It sounds small and weak and pathetic. The corner of Matt’s mouth curls upwards in a small smile. It’s not a happy smile, but a borderline sadistic, satisfied one, sharp at the edges and meant only for Dex.
Dex comes violently. His body shakes and locks down as his mouth falls open in a quiet, shaking moan. His hips act independently from his brain and thrust one, two, three times more against Matt as he spends himself in his suit before collapsing in a delirious mess, throbbing and oversensitive.
Matt hauls himself back off of Dex instantly, smoothing a hand over his armor. Dex trembles. He’s feverish and sweating and tries desperately to clear his throat.
“You?” His voice scrapes. Matt’s nose wrinkles. He’s wiping his mouth with a piece of medical gauze, crouching down to sort once more in the kit. He retrieves the bottle of saline and a suture kit, and folds his legs to regard Dex, like nothing had happened.
“No,” Matt mutters. His eyebrows are drawn in concentration as he threads a hooked needle.
“Catholics,” Dex giggles, incoherent and drunk on Matt as he finally loses consciousness.