Dennis blinked into the light and swallowed a curse. She was curled against his chest as he sat rigidly in the position Barry had left him in. He had thought Barry would really have enough sense by now to move before giving him back the light, but the feel of Casey crashed over him and he sighed.
"Dennis?" It was as if all she needed was that one sigh to know it was him. He wasn't aware she had felt the change in almost every part of him. Her head came up, off of his chest, freeing it of its tight, restrictive hold and he sucked in a breath laced with a type of pain. It hurt when she touched him, almost as badly as it hurt when she left. "How are you feeling?"
His hand went to her elbow, helping her shift off him as she moved. When she was settled back onto the cushion, Barry's advice suddenly rang in her ear. She didn't understand why Barry had said that, wasn't sure what the alter was seeing that she had missed.
Dennis leaned forward slightly, retrieving his glasses from the coffee table and slipped them on before crossing his arms over his chest.
"Better," he answered simply, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, "I apologize for earlier," he stated, though Barry had already apologized, and Casey looked at him confused.
"Your bedroom," Dennis reminded simply, and watched her cheeks flame.
"I never should have put it on. I really should get Barry to take it back. I just..." she trailed off, "Wanted to know what it felt like," she whispered.
Dennis didn't move, "did you like it?" It seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to say, but Casey felt tears threaten and wanted to scream.
This wasn't her. She didn't want it to be, the frightened mess that cried constantly. But it's not like her situation was exactly normal.
"I just shouldn't have put it on."
Dennis watched her draw into herself, legs up, arms around them, and wondered if she even knew she was doing it. She seemed drawn into a dark hold of sadness and he frowned, uncertain of what to do.
Barry could make her smile in a heartbeat, pull her out of her situation and make her laugh. Dennis just seemed to make it worse.
She shook herself, her hand reached out as if without thinking and settled on his arm, "I'm glad you're feeling better," she smiled a little bit shakily at him, and Dennis blinked at her, his gaze dropping to her hand.
She saw it and went to draw back.
"No," Dennis's voice stopped her, "You don't have to, I'm not," frustration was evident in his tone, "I don't want you to be afraid of me."
"I'm not afraid of you," Casey's answer was almost immediate, and Dennis looked at her. She coloured slightly, "I was, maybe, at times. but I just wasn't expecting... you."
The way she said it, like he was an unstable force once just had to prepare for. He made a hard noise in the back of his throat and looked away.
Casey studied him, his profile as he stared at a spot above the tv. Words suddenly came to mind, his own, broken and a little desperate, They hate me for what I want, how I want. Compassion welled within her.
The others, so many of them had relied so heavily on his strength, used it, but didn't like it when it showed up in ways they weren't expecting. The immensity of his emotion fueled that strength, though he kept it under careful lock and key because when it stirred it frightened them. He was stiff and exacting because he knew it was the only way to stay stable, and she wondered suddenly what it was like to live under the constant threat of one thing being out of place because you knew it could be enough to spiral you into someplace dark.
She wondered, then, if Dennis had secrets, if Dennis had scars. What his numb control had cost him, because it always had a cost. Casey's body was a road map of the price of facing darkness and never being able to fully escape.
She lived on her own for a year now, but her uncle had a key to her place.
For 'protection.' 'Just in case'
Just in case he was drunk enough not to care that she had grown out of the little girl he liked. Just not drunk enough to pass out.
Casey choked on a sob. How strange that it had taken coming here, getting kidnapped from a monster, to find kindness. To find someone who cared. They all did, most of them anyway, in their own ways. Barry, Hedwig, Jade, sometimes even Patricia.
And Dennis, who they had only allowed back into the light so they could use his strength, was doing everything he could to keep her safe, even though she did not deserve it, even though he didn't care.
"Casey," Dennis was frowning at her in concern as she choked on her tears, almost gagging at the feeling twisting inside of her. The one she kept down, the one she pretended wasn't watching her from a dark, cold corner. The one that knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would always be a polluted, twisted thing that could never find warmth because she didn't deserve it.
She had put on that nightgown in some childish attempt to feel beautiful, and all she had seen were her scars.
She was gasping, spiraling, and she felt hands on her shoulders, gripping her.
"Casey, you need to calm down, you're going to make yourself sick."
She wanted, just for once, for the pain to go away, to forget, to believe for one second that it was a lie. That she could get out. All those times Barry had gathered her to him, not even knowing what he was trying to keep out, assuming she shook because of the beast that was coming and not the one she already knew, and she had prayed his arms would be enough to shut out the world.
"Casey!" Dennis shook her, trying to force her to breath, to break whatever hold had her so tightly she cried in anguish. He was afraid of the pain in her eye, afraid of the memories stirring to life, afraid that her fear came from a hurt far deeper than they had suspected.
The beast had stopped the others from asking anything about this girl. Any inquiry to her life outside this place held the potential threat of planned escape, and they couldn't risk it. It worried Dennis, how easily Casey accepted the necessary silence. Like she didn't want to talk about it even if she could.
She fell a little and he caught her, there, against him, hands going to her back, tightening as she shook. His heart was thudding heavily and he could hear it in his ears, pounding with the shaky sound of her breaths. Her hands fisted against him, into his shirt, clinging to him, and Dennis let his arms tighten, let her crawl into him and he fell back into the couch, groaning as she buried her head in his neck and cried.
Something in him broke through. Some worn, forgotten piece of him and he held her against him, stubbornly, determinedly, wishing he could take her pain. Wishing that he could stand between her and it and let it break him down. She cried and Dennis knew, he knew that this had to end. She couldn't stay here, trapped in this place just waiting for the beast to come for her. The others couldn't keep tripping out of the light, terrified the beast would rip into their place.
She needed to get out, she needed to be free, and he was the only one that could end it.
Dennis didn't rock her in his arms, didn't shush her quietly against her hair or murmur against her like Barry had done. His arms locked, hard and unbreakable in place. His chest rose and fell with intentional evenness beneath her and Casey locked on to the sound. She counted his breaths when her own were too broken to find. She curled into his strength and she felt the hold, the tight frantic grip of ice around her begin to loosen. The black faded into a place out of reach, and Casey sucked in a shuddering breath, feeling life touch her lungs.
Her cries fell away, drained and unsustainable. The panic eased into exhaustion. There, locked in warm and strength and solid protection, Casey fell asleep, and for the first time she could remember, Casey didn't dream.
She woke to the world shifting beneath her, and found Dennis laying her on her bed. She caught his arm in the shaded dark as he went to stand.
"I don't want to be alone."
Dennis held in silence for a full minute.
"I can get Barry back,"
"No, no we need you to stay."
She felt his surprise.
"Why." His tone held an odd sound, did not sound like it should have come from him.
"The beast doesn't watch you," she whispered.
Dennis was silent, eyes carefully blank, mind working. "They need me," he muttered, as if the words were foreign, impossible.
The way he said it.
Casey wanted to cry. He was a man so desperate to just be needed, as if the thought of anything beyond that was simply too unobtainable. All he had been made for, lived for, was being a necessity. He was dark and unstable, and he knew it. Tainted by other's rage, by taking their pain. All those years he was holding back a terrible darkness. Using all of his strength to protect all of them, and they hated him for it.
There was a sharp sound as his breath left him, then very carefully Dennis settled beside her.
They weren't touching, and Casey reached out, her fingers finding his shirt and she latched on.
"Is this okay?" she whispered.
Dennis nodded thickly, "Yes," and he heard her sigh.
He stared, blinking at the ceiling, feeling her breath move, ignoring the way his heart beat just slightly too fast. Her hand rested against his hip, clutched in his shirt, looking for some connection.
His body was at war with his mind.
He wanted this, to reach for her in the dark and pull her against him, to have her in his arms and have her know it was him she clung to. He wanted to feel her.
But he knew he shouldn't. He knew that he shouldn't and he hoped that would be enough to stop him.
She shifted, her hand falling from his shirt a moment before she mumbled in her sleep, her fingers searching for warmth again, and they slipped beneath the hem of his undershirt, and skated across his skin.
Dennis sucked in a breath, cursing softly.
She trembled slightly, rolling closer, brow furrowing and her eyes darted as she dreamed. He watched her face in the cover of shadows, watched her tongue touch her lips, her breathe out a soft moan, before she tossed slightly beside him, blinking awake a quiet moment.
Casey squinted at the dark, her heart beating heavier with images from a dream that was already fading. She moved, and felt her hand cross heat. She warmed, registering the feel of taut skin beneath her hand and it moved, snaking higher.
She heard his quiet grunt of surprise, saw his eyes, almost shadows in the dark, widen slightly.
"Is this okay?" she whispered, covered with an overwhelming urge to feel him solid and real beside her. To know his strength lay beneath her fingertips, ready and obtainable. He nodded, just barely in the dark, and Casey curled closer.
Her hand traveled up the lines of his stomach, smoothing over the hardness of his chest, lost in their own path. She pushed herself up, her breath passing against his neck, and he stiffened.
"Stop." he panted, and Casey froze, "I can't-" he broke off, almost sounding as if he was in pain, and she drew back sharply.
"Dennis?" she whispered in concern.
His hands rose to rake across the skin of his head, trying to drive out the sound of his name falling as a quiet whisper from her lips. He couldn't do this. He couldn't be here like this and not want, not need to touch her, to trace heat across her with his fingertips, to hear her gasp against his skin. The memory of every touch blazoned through his mind, every accidental moment she lay against him, unaware of who she held, and he selfishly, desperately, clung to the moments when her hands had reached and known who they were finding. When she had rested her forehead against his as chaos reigned around them. When her fingers touched his arm, when her hands traced his chest as she pushed his shirt from his shoulders, so gently, so carefully, like she cared.
Like he mattered.
Like he was more than a wall of steel.
But in the back of his mind he knew how foolish he was being, how stupidly weak it was to let thoughts, hopes like that form.
She wouldn't gasp softly beneath his touch, she wouldn't let his hands trail over every feature.
That was soft and full of everything Dennis knew better than to want. and for a moment his mind turned to the places he could push her, wild and uncontrolled. She could love Barry, giving with aching softness, he would let her rail against him, taking every piece of him and leaving nothing in return.
"I have to go." The words came out too fast, too unsteady, his hands shaking as he sucked in a slow breath, hearing it catch in his chest constricting too tight as he sat up swiftly, moving to the edge of the bed.
"Dennis, what's wrong?"
He heard the wariness, the uncertain edge and he could feel her pulling away, like she should. He focused on his breathing, trying to calm, his head falling into his hands. He tried to chase away the feeling, the memory of her curling against him, desperate for touch, for comfort. She hadn't cared it was him she was touching.
Casey slipped towards the edge of the bed and padded quietly around to where Dennis sat, concern cinching her stomach. She didn't know what the beast had done to him, worried he was not as better as he proclaimed to be.
"Dennis?"
He jerked, head coming up to see her standing right beside him.
"Are you ok?"
He stood suddenly, crossing the room, gripping the door and swinging it open. He stopped, long enough to take a breath, to straighten, "Get some sleep."
Then he was gone.
