Dismantled: Karen and Dex
CW: Caning for discipline, serious blood, cuts, wounds, bruises, all the stuff you an imagine. Dehumanizing and degrading language, references to dubcon, pet whump, dehumanization, broken bones, head wounds, suicidal ideation (brief, at the end) as a way to escape torture… look, the gang’s all here.
He walked into the trap before he understood what it was - later he would be able to see the way she had been lying in wait for him to slip, but in the moment all he understood was that, once again, Karen had said no.
“I will not be allowing you to see him.”
Why? Dex signed, an angry slash of movement through the air with his hands.
That very first question had been the first mistake. They were never to ask Madam why, her word was law, she would explain or not as she saw fit. He should never have asked.
He’d done so well, for twenty years, but then he’d had to wait for Wright in perfect silence - five fucking years of silence - wearing his mask. He’d done it, in the end. He had played his part.
He’d stood behind her at prison visits, looking at Wright through glass pretending to be empty. He’d listened to their surreptitious phone conversations, unable to so much as greet him. He’d waited and waited and waited. When Wright had left prison he’d been sent to him, lived for a week in that hotel under assumed names and spent every day wrapped in him, under him, around him…
Since then, nothing. She was using him, feeding him to Wright or denying him for her own purposes and at her own whims. She always had been, but it grated on him more than ever.
He was tired of being a chess piece, a bit of control Karen could exert over someone who she was supposed to care about.
The only person she supposedly cared about.
She watched him, for just a moment, with silent regard. “Because I said no, Dex. He will ask again. Besides.” She smirked, sitting slowly back. “He’s gotten too dependent on having you as it is, and I’d like him to focus on dealing with his true passion, his projects, not… you.”
That had been the red flag, the warning sign he should have seen.
“I am given to understand, Dex, darling, that Wright has gathered his lost sheep together. I’m sure he keeps himself busy dipping his pen in that variety of ink.” The amusement on her face infuriated him, and Dex struggled to keep it buried as far as he always had, the anger in him a simmering pool beneath an unbroken placid surface. “Does that bother you?”
Dex swallowed, hard, and he could barely unclench his fists enough to sign his response. I am Wright’s bed toy, nothing else. I don’t care what he does with others.
“Ah, is that true? Is it?” Karen smiled and folded her hands on the desk in front of her. “Wonderful. So you don’t mind if you never see him again.”
Never? His hands shook forming the word. His heart went cold, not with fear but anger.
He had been at Karen’s side since he was nineteen years old, forced into the mold she had made for him, silent and obedient, her perfect masterpiece. His life belonged to her, had always belonged to her. She had taken it from him, and the only thing he had found for himself within it had been Wright Farling helping him remember who he was, how to speak, giving him a safe place to think.
He should have known that if she found out about Wright, she would take him, too.
