A Promise Fulfilled [WattyAwards#2012]

Chapter IX: The Broken Ones

A/N: Do feast upon the Dex's sexiness.
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Chapter IX: The Broken Ones

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"...maybe I see a part of me in them, the missing piece always trying to fit in. The shattered heart, hungry for a home. No, you're not alone. I love the broken ones." 

Dia Frampton, The Broken Ones.

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Haley didn't spare Dex a look when she returned from upstairs and headed into the kitchen to put on the water. She hummed gently under her breath, expression soft, and she looked lovelier now with mascara smeared and lipstick rubbed off than she ever could with her fake face. She was younger, somehow, but also older, gentle, and Dex wondered what she was like before all this, and he wondered what she had the potential to be. What could she do, if someday she managed to sweep up the glass fragments that must be scattered somewhere around her stomach, sweep them up and piece them together again into the heart they once were. Maybe an aorta or two would be in the wrong place, but could it still work the same?

He went to her instead of waiting for her to acknowledge him, leaning against the counter and watching her prepare the instant coffee. "Is he still mad at me?"

"Furious." She nodded. "He'll sulk up there for hours now."

Dex sighed and dragged his hand along his face, skin catching at the stubble there. "I shouldn't have done that," he admitted.

"Done what?" She asked, putting on the water and hopping up on to the counter in her usual spot. He could smell the cloying scent of her perfume from here. It was sweet, yet bitter, and Dex remembered his mother throwing out perfumes once they'd gotten too old and started to smell like this.

Dex closed his eyes and massaged his temples. Thinking about his mother's perfumes all lined up on the dresser wasn't useful right now." He told me not to involve you, and...and I should have respected that."

Suddenly, a warm hand enclosed his own, and he opened his eyes to find Haley's face inches from his, taking up the whole of his vision. She really was beautiful, Dex realized in that second, once you could look past the shell she had built around herself, and he imagined several thousand young men would murder to be in his position right now.

He hoped she was able to find that man, someday. But now, she had only found his eyes with her own.

"It was the right thing," she whispered. "I...I owe you one, right?"

Dex shook his head and pulled back a little. "No. It wasn't right."

Haley frowned and her nails dug sharply into his hand. "Hey. Look, no. It was."

When he just sighed, she rolled her eyes and slid off the counter, taking both his shoulders and gripping tight. "Look, hobbit, I know Timmy a lot better than you do, right? So when I say it was the right thing to do, just accept that I'm right, you're wrong, and move on."

She shoved away from him and heads back to prepare the coffee. Dex's eyes flickered to the door to the upstairs. He had sat down on the couch with Haley at his side for half an hour after Timmy had stomped upstairs, listening to brief frustrated yells and his name being used in a variety of very creative curses before things had calmed down and Haley had gone to check on him. It had been the guiltiest Dex had ever felt in his life, and that included the time he had punched his boxing instructor into submission out of rage.

"Hey." Haley leaned over the counter. "Would you listen? You did the right thing. Yes, Timmy's gonna go all head-bitch on your ass for the next month, but..."