Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Brian is 21 years old when he is told he’s being released from the institution.

Satisfaction curls in his belly like a purring cat and glee bubbles up his throat. It’s been a long time since something evoked an emotional response from him.

He keeps his face serious and nods solemnly when his psychiatrist uses words like magnificent improvement, conformist behavior and deemed fit for integration. The man in front of him is an expert in his field and for him to be so certain that Brian is fit to reenter society makes the passenger in his head cackle triumphantly. If he can’t tell, no one can.

The bureaucracy takes about a week to come through.

He takes that time to reflect on the past decade and a half spent in here and enjoying the thought of never seeing the place again.

The very last day drags on more than he thought possible, but finally, he is standing in the hospital lobby, a few short steps away from freedom.        

It feels surreal.

Sixteen years of white walls, bland food, boring doctors and noisy psychiatrists.

Sixteen years since he last saw his baby brother.

A memory briefly flashes in his mind. The small, bloodied hand slipping out of his grasp and his own hanging desperately in the empty air, reaching for dreams and futures that disappear with his little brother.

He feels a dull pang at the thought. 

The dark figure reclining in the back of his mind clacks with its sharp teeth, suddenly standing at attention, noticing Brian’s slip in control.

We could make them bleed it whispers.

Brian is not entirely sure who them is supposed to be, but it doesn’t really matter because it’s like the words are a switch and he suddenly realizes he’s starving. He has not seen blood in years and he’s desperate for it, salivating at the thought of it. His Shadow tries to seduce him with ideas of a free life, taunts him with murder and rivers of blood, tells him he could get his happy ever after, that they can take whatever they wish and never have to worry about repercussions.

Unfortunately, he has learned life doesn’t work that way, so he smiles at the receptionist who is handing him his release forms and focuses on keeping his mask picture perfect. He can’t afford any slip-ups now. The Shadow grumbles when he forcefully shoves it back, but acquiesces. 

Everything passes smoothly and soon he’s waving a cheerful goodbye to the people seeing him off. His primary doctor looks so very proud of his achievement.  

Hate corrodes the inside of his stomach like acid.  

He walks out of the dreary building, leaving behind the screams of the mentally ill and seemingly soothing whispers of sadistic doctors.  

Rough gravel crunches under his feet when he walks to the main road. The taxi was already called for him and the only belongings he has are stuffed into his backpack. The only consolation are the meagre five thousand dollars allotted to him by the state.

He takes one last look at the dreary building.    

If there is anything at all he is grateful for, it is for the lessons he received in the bowls of the asylum – brutal as they had been.

Before Brian learned how to hide, how to act as a normal human being, every misstep, every abnormality was severely punished. Given how he wore his bloodlust like a cloak and bundled himself in violence, he would either spend his days drugged to high heavens, not knowing his own name, or he would be kept in a strait jacket, his arms itchy and uncomfortable. Then he would act out again and another patient or doctor would be sent to the ER.

For about four years the cycle repeated over and over again, before he finally broke down after one too many “lessons” and caved to the social constructs they force-fed him.   

The Shadow, slithering in the dark corners of his mind, was stuffed into a box, howling and screeching and cursing. It was for the best. They couldn’t parade in the daylight anymore, not under the watchful gazes of the staff.

Things got slightly better for him after that. On the surface anyway.

At night his head would be filled with scratching sounds, his Shadow’s long claws gently running over the wood of its prison, trying to seduce him with soft words and silky promises.

Other nights it would bang on the walls and trash in its cage, hissing like a viper and snapping at him with too many mouths.

Some days it picked the lock.        

Those days were the worst. The minute satisfaction that came from plunging a sharpened pencil into a fellow patient’s eyeball was quickly erased by shock therapy.

Reality seemed distorted, like a kaleidoscope, a Merry go round, round and round and round, when electricity zapped through his muscles. He could feel little fireworks in his teeth, when it asked if it could stay for tea and settled comfortably under his skin, searing electric charges into his soft brain.

The Shadow fell quiet in the face of its mistakes, but Brian knew it wasn’t out of regret. The Shadow, after all, is a want and a need, it is a dark satisfaction and an inescapable addiction.

When Brian woke up, with stiff muscles and creaking joints, he conjured up knifes and saws and scalpels and reshaped his own passenger.

It doesn’t fight him when he saws off its too many arms, when he sews its eyes shut and snaps the bones in its feet. He takes a hammer to its head, molds it in the fire of his hate and dowses the finished project in cold black waters of his soul.

What was once mindless, unrestrained and feral, has become smart, patient and precise.            

If Brian wanted to survive that hell, outlive it, he had to learn fast. He took his ques by observing the doctors; by their interactions, by their facial expressions, by their body language. Soon, he crafted his human mask and perfected it until it was air tight. He learned how to smile with a crinkle around his eyes, how to shed tears on demand, how and when to pause in his speech patterns.

And here he is, after an entire decade.

A free man.

He shakes out of his musing when a cab stops in front of him. He opens the door and the smell of tobacco hits him, overwhelming his senses. The only indication of his immense displeasure is a slight furrow that appears in his brow. He politely requests a drive to the nearest airport and spends the next hour in silence, contemplating his next move.

He thinks of the life he is leaving behind, thinks of the vague memory of a family.

Loving mother Laura and her gentle caresses (until she was lying in a pool of icky, sticky, messy blood, her gentle hands strewn somewhere inside the container), his Darling brother Dexter, always so curious (putting red messy fingers into his mouth: “’m hungry, Biney.”) their family home (now forever empty, forever haunted).  

Brian can’t really feel much these days, not since the massacre, but even he can sense tendrils of something unpleasant stirring in his chest. Sadness maybe. Or perhaps regret. He is a master of recognizing emotions in other people, but having barely experienced them himself, he doesn’t quite know how to diagnose some of them when they happen to him.

Even though the thought of leaving his brother is unpleasant, he knows the reunion with Dexter will have to wait. Brian has a life to craft for himself and freedom calls to him with such a sweet, loving voice.

When they finally come to a stop, he pays the cab driver and takes his first step toward a new life.

He boards the first plane to France and soon after enrolls into Sorbonne university in Paris where he learns about the human form.

The city of love is a new beast entirely.

The first couple weeks Brian wakes up disorientated, suspecting some sort of a trick. The thought that he’s still in the asylum and this stunning new world is just a part of his imagination haunts him. He hasn’t allowed himself a kill yet and he can feel the stress eating at his bare bones.

He is so, so very hungry, but he perseveres and endures the weightless feeling of freedom that is as much liberating as it is uncomfortable.

He continues like this, dipping his toes into the strange new waters and prays he adjusts fast enough to keep up with the currents.

The college offers a distraction from his ever growing hunger and he milks it for all it’s worth. He attends study sessions and visits museums and goes to parties. He never quite manages to forget.  

After months of living on the precipice, batting away the peripheral fear the institution injected into his bloodstream and the smothering feeling of starvation, he is just about ready to burst.

That evening he throws himself on the bed and screams into his pillow. His restraint snaps, like a rubber band stretched too far. Then he walks right back out the front door with a knife tucked into his jeans and madness sloshing in his eyes.

The Shadow howls when Brian unshackles its restrains and finally, finally they merge once again, like lovers finding their way back into each other’s arms.

It’s a full moon. He thinks it’s poetic.           

That night he picks his very first victim. A young, pretty brunet working in a run-down café. He waits until she gets off work then chokes her from behind and drags her into the nearby woods.  

His first kill is … messy.

Years of pent up frustration transform the girl into a glorified broth, cut into pieces so small it reminds him of mincemeat. Shards of bone stick to his palm and he can feel them gritting together when he curls and uncurls his fist. There is so much blood, he’s transfixed. Kneeling over her body, the rich coppery smell makes his head spin. He plunges his bare hands deeper into the chest cavity below and squeezes the warm organs like a child playing with mud. Later, he will look back and feel disgust at his beastly behavior, but right now he can’t be bothered to give a damn.  

He’s bloody from head to toe, tiny pieces of meat are sticking to him everywhere, he’s harder than he’s ever been in his life and he’s rolling in human blood like a dog in a puddle. 

He loves it.     

The catharsis is so great he thinks he might have blacked out for a moment, because the next thing he’s aware of is him basically lying on (in?) the girl, his hand still somewhere inside of her chest cavity and his face pressed into her shredded collar bone.

When he comes down from his high, he realizes he made an absolute mess. He can only hope no one finds her. The DNA evidence is damning.

He leaves her there and focuses on getting back to his apartment without being seen. He’ll have to come back and deal with the aftermath, but for now, he just enjoys the pleasurable aftereffects.       

That night he dreams of screams and chainsaws and stickymessyickyred-

The next day Brian digs a hole in the woods and burns the body. Every day after that, he checks the news reports for any mentions of the girl. She’s reported missing after five days, but luckily no one seems to have clue of where she might be. Hopefully, it will stay that way.

After a month of silence, the hunger kicks up again. Brian, so used to being starved isn’t bothered by it. Not really. Still, he starts thinking of ways to better his craft. He can’t rely on dumb luck after all. He will kill again, there is no doubt about that, but this time he wants it to go over a bit … cleaner.

He found that as much as he loves the blood, he also kind of hates it too. It’s a strange dichotomy he doesn’t quite understand.   

The idea comes to him three months later, when he stops at a local butcher’s shop. The bell strung above the door chimes and Brian is engulfed in the smell of spices and smoked meat. The man behind the counter opens the doors to the built in freezer where the gutted pigs are strung up and Brian lets out a breath of air that could almost be mistaken for a laugh.

It actually is pretty funny. What else are his victims but filthy, smelly, uncultured animals.

Brian doesn’t have access to a large space with a cooling unit, but he makes do by stuffing his victims in his freezer for a few hours before he starts cutting. It doesn’t really work as well as he initially envisioned, but it’s slightly better. The blood doesn’t flow as fast at least. He has to clean every bit of his small apartment every time he invites a victim to his home. It works out, even if it’s a lot of work.

In the next couple of years, he moonlights as Homme de glace (The Ice Man) as the French reporters call him and kills around two dozen people. The police try their hardest, but well, he is a perfectionist. He doesn’t leave them a single clue.

In the daylight he is a model student, he excels in all areas and graduates a year early.     

A slight itch blooms in his chest at the graduation ceremony. Seeing his peers wave at their family members makes the absence of his own family that much more prominent. He hasn’t thought of his mother and little brother as much in the past few years. Not since he left the US, anyway. Probably because so much has been going on in his life. With all the new experiences and him trying to catch up to everything he missed out on, life left little opportunity for reminiscence.

He lightly scratches the spot above his heart and thinks of gentle hands and scraped knees, thinks of playing hide and seek and finding toy cars stuffed under his pillow.

He thinks it’s about time he finds his way back home.

Brian is 28 years old when he boards the plane to America.

The land of the free and the home of the brave.

He arrives in Miami at seven AM, a bit jet-legged, but otherwise in high spirits. He will have to rent a hotel room until he can find his own place. But first, he has to visit his old home. His family takes priority over sleep and comfort.

Even if one quarter is dead and the other two lost to the wind.

He passes security, all smiles and charm. While his documents are being checked, he sneaks a look at the unassuming crowd of people. Airports are so very tedious; everyone seems to be in a hurry, like ants scurrying around. He spots a family of four running to their destination, shoes clacking against polished white floor, a few feet away a woman drops her handbag, contents spilling out like blood from a cracked skull, a business-man talking fast and angry into a phone, spittle flying out of his mouth-  

“Here you go, sir.” He grabs his passport from the young brunette and flashes her a smile.

“Thank you.”

He walks out, still contemplating how to find his old house, how to find Dexter. What does he even say to him? Will Dexter accept him as he is now? What if his dear brother is just like the rest of humanity - normal, boring. The thought chills him to the bone and he shoves it to the back of his head.

First things first. Nice and easy.

As luck would have it, he passes an elderly man driving a black Dodge. Grandpa is just getting out of the car, when Brian comes up behind him.

In his head he hears an announcer: Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!

The corner of his mouth twitches upwards. 

He kills him in the Airport parking lot with little fuss and obtains a shiny new car.

It’s incredible how people can be so very blind. He just snapped a man’s neck and stuffed him into a bush in broad daylight and no one noticed a thing. Then again, he supposes it’s actually night time that people become more aware of their surroundings, afraid of what might be lurking in the shadows. But daylight? No, nothing bad could possibly happen in the daylight.

The leather of the car squeaks when he comfortably settles down and starts the engine. He’ll have to change the plates before they find the body or dispose of the car entirely. 

He’s not too worried. 

He drives to the nearest café with internet connection. He orders himself a coffee, asks for a free computer and starts looking up Laura Moser. Brian was too young to remember their home address but he hopes he can find something online.

After about half an hour he finally finds it in an obscure news article.  

1235 Mangrove Drive

He’s a bit uncomfortable with how fast he packs up, his body guided by some unseen force. He grabs his half-finished coffee and walks to the car he stole. There is a GPS installed and he types in the address with sure, steady hands. Then he’s off, cruising the Miami jungle, setting sails for home.

Home. What a strange concept.

Brian spent his time in hotel rooms, apartments, even a small house at some point, but they were never home. Just a space he inhabited at the time.

People say home is where the heart is. If that’s true, then Brian’s home can only be this very house.

It’s where he left his heart, left his soul, his humanity.

After hours of driving he finally comes to a stop. The sun is set high in the sky and the heat is slightly suffocating at this time of day.

He steps out of the car and gets a first glimpse of his small house.

It’s is shabbier than he remembers; the paint is peeling and the garden is overgrown, full of weeds, but Brian has never seen anything so beautiful.

He feels … he feels like, like –

“Mommy’s going to get you!”

He sees Dexter and mom running in the garden, playing.

She’s beautiful. He almost forgot. Usually he sees her in pieces, but here, she is so alive. Smiling and laughing and running around.

Her hair in pigtails, nails like the rainbow. Radiant, like there is a sun trapped inside a human body. And just like The Sun, he gravitates around her, every step leading back to her, every gesture made for her, every drop of blood spilled because of her.

The darkness inside him, always so prominent, takes a backseat. It’s almost like her light chased it away into the far reaches of his soul. Now, here, he is simply … Brian. Biney. It’s a novel experience.

He thinks he could stay here forever. Just like this.

Something in his chest is moving, squeezing. He feels breathless.

As he watches her dancing, barefoot, with undiluted joy painted on her face, he realizes with startling clarity just how much he loves her. It’s a fierceness he didn’t think he was even capable of, the kind of reverence that is reserved for deities. The kind of love that would burn down cities and build up nations and he would gladly tear the heart out of his chest if it meant seeing her just one more time.

But she’s gone now.

Now there’s only him, only Brian to remember her, only Brian to cherish her.   

He spends the rest of his day here.

Basking in memories long since passed.

…

The next four years are filled with preparations, squirreling away money and searching, tracking down his baby brother while working as a prosthetic surgeon.

Somewhere down the line he kills Rudy Cooper and takes his identity, then travels all across the United states in search for his elusive sibling. From Florida to Maine to Minnesota to Nebraska, Arizona, California, Washington and all the states in between. There is no mention of Dexter Moser anywhere. It’s like he disappeared into thin air at the tender age of three and Brian is at the end of his rope.

Almost thirty people give their lives, leaving a bloody trail across America. The hunger is insatiable. The longer his search stretches, the more frustrated he becomes, the more bodies are found lifeless. Some strangled, some cut, some injected. It doesn’t matter. He can’t exactly freeze anyone when he’s this mobile.

Brian is 32 when he returns to Miami, defeated, alone, desperate.

His only consolation is the old Moser house, now finally in his possession. It would feel disrespectful buying it as Rudy, so he claims it as Brian Moser. He finds himself an apartment and works on furnishing it to satisfy his needs; a built in freezer, a custom lock, cameras.

It’s completely by chance that he finds a clue leading to his brother.

He’s buying groceries when he sees it. Front page of a newspaper.

‘Killer caught thanks to the stellar work of blood spatter analyst Dexter Morgan’

He almost rips the newspaper when he pulls it off the rack.

Dexter. Dexter Morgan. His Dexter?

He almost laughs; a blood spatter analyst. That is...yes, that would fit. Could it be? All this time, he was right here. Right here. In Miami.

His excited thoughts are halted by the last name.

Morgan, isn’t that the name of the cop that was involved in their crime scene?

Brian can feel suspicion taking root deep in his belly and with it comes a cold anger. 

The next days are spent in a frenzy, tracing down Harry Morgan and Dexter Morgan. What he finds ... well. Two people die in a span of twenty-four hours.

He tracks Dexter to 8420 Palm Terrace, apartment number 108.

In the morning he calls in sick and drives to Dexter’s abode. It’s seven o’clock when he arrives at the parking lot and kills the engine - just in time to take his first real look at his long lost sibling. Right on the dot Dexter steppes out of the door into the humid Miami day.

He’s wearing a plain white shirt and darks shorts, his hair slightly messy, like he barely remembered to run a brush through it.

He looks good.

Something in Brian is trashing and screaming (mineminemine, my baby brother). He grips the steering wheel so hard his fingers become completely white just to keep himself seated. He wants to run out there and grip him by the throat and never let go.

For a second he’s not sure if he wants to cradle him or kill him.

A small part, nestled deep inside his brain, is furious. How dare he leave Brian alone. How dare he abandon his family. He should tear him apart limb from limb and present him as an offering at their mother’s grave.

As soon as it came, the stab of anger is gone. It’s not Dexter’s fault they were separated. He might not even remember he had a family. Besides, Brian loves his brother too much to ever really harm him.

He waits for Dexter to leave, then proceeds to break into his apartment. It’s depressingly easy. He is not surprised by the neat little living space, but it’s still good, knowing they are similar at least in this. Brian prays to a God he doesn’t believe in that they are more alike than just their common neatness.

He looks at old photos, opens the cabinets, checks out his closet. There he finds a large case containing a rifle, some duct tape, plastic bags and a tool set. Brian is breathless with hope.

Good things do happen to bad people.

He combs the space from floor to ceiling. Then, finally, he finds them. He finds the slides, stuffed in the air conditioner and he feels … feels like … something. His heart is beating. Not that it normally doesn’t of course, but now, he can actually feel his heart pounding in his ribcage. How strange. He feels … alive.

Is this what happiness feels like? He’s a bit rusty when it comes to positive emotions.     

There is no doubt in his mind; baby brother is a killer.

He runs his gloved hands lovingly across the blood trapped between glass. There are 37 in total. Someone’s been busy.

Brian doesn’t take any trophies himself, the only way to count up his victims is his memory, but he doesn’t really care to do so. Maybe he will, just to see by how much he’s beating his brother.

A game.

He looks to the framed photograph of the Morgan family, mocking him from the shelf. Debra Morgan. Dexter’s fake sister. The last piece linking Horrible Harry to this world. He contemplates getting close to her to get to his brother, thinks about seducing her and using her to bridge the gap between the estranged siblings.

After a moment he decides it’s not worth it. If he’s going to lure in Dear Dexter, he’s not going to rely on that slut. Not when she took his brother from him. Besides, this game will be risky, he doesn’t need any distractions.

He carefully closes the case and puts it back in the AC.

Brian takes another look at the apartment. It really isn’t a bad place. He already has the perfect one, but who says he can’t rent another for a while?

Big Brother Brian becoming a friendly neighbor to Dear Dexter.

Why not?                 

Tonight is the night.

I love Cuban food, pork sandwiches.

I’m hungry for something different now.

Mike Donovan. A pastor, a choir conductor, a killer.

He couldn’t help himself. I understand. I can’t help myself either.

Tonight is a good night.

The next day Dexter gets a voice mail, a desperate call for help from his sister Debra. And being the good brother that he is, he indulges her and drives to the Seven Seas motel.

The smoke in the shabby hotel room is suffocating. He wishes she didn’t smoke inside.

Debra tells him she wants to be transferred from vice. Understandable. If anyone deserves a promotion, it’s Deb. Unfortunately, he can’t do the work for her. He thinks she could do with a bit more confidence. Also, this blatant emotional manipulation she’s trying out on him could use some work. A lot of work actually, given that he’s required to have emotions for that to even work. Still, he’ll take a look.

The third hooker in five months, this could be interesting.

He walks back into the scalding heat of the day and follows the police tape. He can already feel his shirt clinging to him at the back. Gross.

He likes to be clean, meticulous. The Miami heat doesn’t make it easy for him.  

He greets Angel and Masuka and experiences a flash of confusion when they ask him why he’s there.

Then he sees the body and-

Oh.

No blood.  

It’s beautiful.

He feels his insides constrict, half painfully half enjoyably.

The visceral reaction throws him for a loop. When was the last time something made him react at all? He can’t remember. When dad died, maybe?

The thoughts still the longer he looks at the bloodless corps.  

How does he do it? In a trance, he answers the questions his colleagues throw at him, all the while staring at the neatly chopped body parts. He knows he’s been ogling the body for a few seconds longer than is appropriate for normal humans, but it’s hard to look away.  

He can’t think.

He leaves the crime scene, but the body stays with him.

...

In the next few days his focus is expended to more immediate happenings - like finishing reports, fending off Doakes, driving to and from crime-scenes, hunting Jamie Jaworski.

The week passes quickly.

Soon enough it’s Friday evening and he drives to Rita’s house. Admittedly, dating is not one of his strong points, but Rita is easy enough to get along with and she doesn’t expect flowers and jewelry and cheesy love confessions most women are into. He’s not sure he could conjure up the emotion necessary for that. Being with her is … easy. Good.

It helps that the kids like him. He’s always been better with children than adults since they don’t have the emotional depth necessary to comprehend Dexter’s lack of them.

The babysitter greets him with a wave and he presents the chocolaty gifts to Aster and Cody.

When Rita is all done, they say goodnight to the kids and depart. There’s a festival organized tonight and they decided to take a look. They drive through Miami streets in an easy silence that Dexter really appreciates. It’s one of the things about his girlfriend he is most thankful for.

They pay for the parking ticket and head in the direction of flashing lights and thrumming base.   

The music is blaring from the speakers and a throng of people move to its beat. It’s loud and kind of annoying. He doesn’t much care for large crowds. He doesn’t dance either. Still, it’s not all bad. Rita seems to enjoy it at least.

It’s a chance to relax and let go for a few minutes.      

Then, halfway into their date he spots police cars and bright yellow tape and the tension comes rushing back into his muscles like an adrenaline shot.

Is it him? Did he kill again? So soon?

His feet start moving before he even makes the decision and he drags his confused girlfriend behind him. He forces himself not to jog.

There are police cars everywhere and Dexter thinks it is awfully risky to be planting a body near such a big crowd. Granted, it could just be a random incident, but for some reason he doesn’t think so. This killer is bold.  

He is experiencing an odd, adrenaline filled sensation and barely has the mind to tell Rita to wait there, while he goes to check out the scene.

He quickly pulls out his badge and crosses the police tape.

There she is.

No blood.

He flayed this one, he’s raising the bar.

Damn. This guy is good.

There is something stirring inside him. He feels off, not quite so empty anymore. He wonders what the emptiness is being filled with. He’s not sure.

But it feels…pleasant.

Dexter doesn’t think there was ever a moment in his entire life when he felt anything at all, not really, so to him, this is as exciting as a scientist discovering alien life.

There were moments when Dexter felt puzzled, or irritated or uncomfortable, but those were just slight indents, just whispers of what could have been. This is different.

He leaves the scene of the crime with his head in the clouds.

When he drives her home, he tells Rita that the killer is an artist. He can’t contain himself. The words are just bubbling out of his mouth. He wants to share this … this emotion with someone. He wants Rita to understand.

He wants to show her exactly how the killer did it.

The moment is shattered when his girlfriend flees the car and he is left helplessly staring after her.

He really needs to get that neat stack of body parts out of his head.

“Why did I touch her like that?”

...

Life moves on, but for Dexter it feels like his is more and more focused on this other killer.

Cell crystallization, it’s genius. Dexter feels like a kid in class, watching an expert at work. He’s not even mad about the severed head. Especially after he found the Barbie. It was like a Christmas present, one he didn’t even know he wanted, until he got a taste of it. His new friend is so thoughtful.

It’s embarrassingly sentimental, so very unlike him, but he can’t bring himself to throw it away, so he casually keeps it in the freezer. 

And now Deb, bless her heart, found another present. The needle in the haystack. The Ice Truck.

He gets out of his apartment faster than ever before and briefly thinks this is becoming somewhat of an obsession.

They watch Masuka slowly melt the ice and there is something like anticipation brewing in his stomach. Finally, the picture clears and Dexter is speechless.

Fingers, painted so precisely, all different colors. Just like the Barbie doll. But what does it mean?

If he’s trying to impress me, it’s working.

...

Apparently, while Dexter was busy admiring the work of his friend, a lot has been going on in the office and out of it. Gossip travels fast.

A cop died undercover and there’s civil unrest among the good police officers. He tires his best to looks appropriately shocked and dismayed at the news. He’s not sure he succeeds. In other news, another killer is on the loose.

Matt Chambers came to crash the wrong party and Dexter is on to him.

Also, he’s less than impressed with Deb’s new boyfriend. Mr. mechanic something-or-other. It doesn’t help that he’s making Rita feel insecure, which in turn makes his life more complicated. And awkward. Luckily he talked his way out of that sticky situation. It’s a good thing Rita is as damaged as she is.

The next day he’s on the frozen fingertips again. It’s like he can’t keep away.

Tag Dexter, you’re it.

He hates to say it, but this guy is as good as Dexter himself, if not more artistic. He tries to imagine him in his head, but the only thing he can come up with is a vague dark outline.

His life is beginning to look more and more bland, the longer he stares at the fingers under the microscope. Dexter wants someone to see him without a mask.

He distracts himself with the new casefiles on his desk and fills up his time by writing up reports.

Days go by without anything interesting happening. No bloodless bodies to be found.

The world is back to its boring, static self and Dexter thinks he would be sulking, if he had enough emotion for that.

Every new crime scene he goes to looks more and more bland. A stabbing here, a suicide there. A drug deal gone wrong. Really, is an interesting death too much to ask for? At this point he would take anything. Anything at all.

Predictably, he’s disappointed.

On a more cheerful note, Deb finally got promoted, boyfriend-the-mechanic is gone with the wind and word is Doakes slept with the dead cop’s wife.

Life is good.

When he kills Mr. Chambers it’s even better.

He returns to his apartment fully satisfied in a way he only gets after a good kill. He carefully inserts the newest slide into the trophy box.

Then he notices the Barbie head glued to the fridge.

And no body.

The pieces are missing again. He’s not sure how to feel about that.

Come find me.  

He wants to. He will. Eventually.

...

Life is spiraling, slowly but surely, towards some kind of a messy disaster.

First he has to attend a funeral of the dead cop he doesn’t even know and by the end his facial muscles are screaming. It’s horribly uncomfortable. Rita loses her car to a drug dealer and Dexter has no idea how to deal with the tears and the insistence that she’s fine. The coworkers feel like creatures he can barely communicate with. It’s like they speak a different language. A butter-face? Really?

He grows slightly frustrated just thinking of human stupidity.  

But then Deb says: “He’s back,” and it’s like all the mundane worries have evaporated into the air and the only thing that matters is the body.

The body in the hockey arena.

God, this guy is … stunning. It’s been much too long. This is like a balm for his soul.  

He stares at the corps long enough for Angel to notice.

“Hey, Dexter, you ok?”

Stupidly, the first thing out of his mouth is: “this feels like a dream.”

It’s like he doesn’t have a brain to mouth filter anymore.

Look what you’ve reduced me to, my dear playmate. I can’t even lie anymore. My mask is slipping.

He bullshits something about standing in the arena of Miami Blades.

“Huh, I never pegged you for a hockey fan.” It’s because he’s not.

After exchanging more words with Angel and Masuka he turns to greet his sister and prepares to leave.    

Well, he does, until suddenly Doakes shouts something about a suspect and Dexter nearly chokes on his spit. In a second he’s waddling on the slippery ice back towards Debra.

“There is a suspect?” He asks, incredulous.

It’s not possible. This guy is a perfectionist, he’s like Dexter, he’s not supposed to leave any clues.

“I’ll let you know as soon as…”

By that point he’s barely listening. He registers his sister saying something about knowing the victim, but he’s too out of it to put on a proper mask, so his sentiments fall flat. He can’t think.

He drives back home and loses himself in his thoughts. The next time he actually becomes aware of his surroundings is when he turns right to enter the parking lot in front of his apartment building. He briefly wonders how he didn’t crash into anything, but it’s not the first time his body went on auto-pilot while his mind took a hike. Thank god for muscle memory.

He exits the air-conditioned car and steps into the hot summer afternoon. For a second he allows himself to just breathe in the air. The smell is salty and fresh; the smell of sea. There is a slight breeze dancing through his hair.

He feels calm again. Empty as always.

The stairs to his apartment make a clanking noise when he walks up and the metal railing is hot to the touch.

Apartment 108. He takes out his keys and unlocks the door. The Barbie head is smiling from the key chain. After the body disappeared, he couldn’t bear to part with it and now that they apparently have a suspect, the possibility of never meeting this man outside of metal bars is bigger than Dexter would like.

He turns on the AC and settles on the couch. The soft cushions slightly cave under his weight and a feeling of contentment spreads in him. He closes his eyes and lets himself drift.

This new friend of his is a puzzle he desperately wants to crack. He remembers Harry and his lessons – never enjoy the kill, this is necessity not fun. Dexter knows this, understands it, but he can’t help it. This game, and it is a game, between Dexter and this other killer is largely one sided, but so, so fun. He feels like there are presents just waiting to be discovered along this bloody road to Oz. And really, when is he last time he had fun at all? He thinks he deserves this at least.

He lets his mind wonder back to the frozen hookers, imagines what it’s like to be so … brazen, authentic. Letting everyone see your stellar work, proudly displaying it and leaving calling cards in the fridges of other killers. It feels like freedom. He wonders if someday –

The knocking at the door rouses him from his daydreams.  

Strange, he’s not expecting visitors and its already six in the evening.

He takes his time getting up and takes a peek through the window. There’s a man standing in front of his door, a bag in his arms. Dexter has never seen him before in his life.

He unhooks the chain and opens the door to a smiling figure. The man is slightly taller than Dexter, with black, curly hair and warm brown eyes.

“Uh, can I help you?” He asks, perplexed.

The man grins and shifts the grocery bag to one hand, while the other is presented to Dexter.

“Hi, my name is Rudy Cooper. I’m your new neighbor.”

Dexter automatically shakes his hand. Great, just what he needs. A new neighbor. At least it’s not the telemarketers. He smiles anyway, because that’s what normal people do; they meet neighbors and make friends. Rudy’s hand is firm and slightly rough, callous. He wonders what his day job is. A mechanic perhaps.   

“Oh, yeah, hi. Dexter Morgan.”

“Nice to meet you Dexter. I hope I’m not bothering; are you busy?”

Damn. Dexter already knows where this is going and he doesn’t care for it. He likes his solitude where he can get it, thank you very much. It’s really the only time he can be himself and his new neighbor seems like the outgoing type.

His mind flashes to Harry and his teachings. Once, when he was younger, Harry told him having good relationships with his neighbors was important. Dexter doesn’t really understand it.

“People want to fit into a community. They want to know that they belong. Neighbors are part of the mask you need to fit in. They are also among the first people the police will go to when they have a possible suspect. Their opinion of you is crucial. Don’t forget that Dexter.”

He has a good relationship with his neighbors. If you count greetings and small talk as relationship. Dexter likes it this way, no one to butt into his small, isolated world. He’s not sure hanging out with Rudy is a good idea.

“Uhh…”

Rudy must sense his hesitation, because his face morphs into a pleading expression.      

“Come on, a little get together. I even got a couple of beers and steaks,” he nudges his head pointedly towards the bag in his arms. Then his face lights up in a mischievous look.

“I promise I don’t bite.”  

Dexter reminds himself of Harry’s lessons again and resigns himself to an evening of awkward get to know you conversation. At least there is free food involved.

“Uh, sure, why not. Come in.”

Rudy flashes him a smile when he passes by him, “thanks.”

Dexter directs him toward the kitchen and closes the door with an ominous clack.

Or maybe that’s just in his head.

Ah well, no going back now.  

“So, Rudy, how do you like this place?” He asks while he watches Rudy unpack the bag. Six porterhouses and two steaks. Looks good. Dexter maneuvers around his guest, grabs the cutting board and pulls the steak knife out of the drawer.

“It’s not bad, not bad at all actually. The thing is, my apartment had problems with the plumbing and now it’s getting renovated, so I had to move out,” he tells Dexter while washing his hands in the sink.

“Uf.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. I couldn’t take a shower without water flooding the place. They said it would take a while, so instead of going into a hotel, I rented an apartment.”

Dexter makes space for Rudy to cut the steaks and moves to the other side to take a seat at the bar stool. It’s a bit strange, watching someone else prepare diner in his kitchen, but he can tell Rudy is skilled with a knife and finds he doesn’t mind as much.

“Wouldn’t the hotel be cheaper though?” He asks while he cracks open a beer.

Rudy looks up with both eyebrows raised, “well yeah, but have you seen the state those rooms are in? Dust everywhere, strange stains of unknown origin on the furniture, old carpets, moldy walls…”

Dexter visibly shudders. “Oh.”

“Yes, I don’t think I would have survived the experience. Either that, or I would embark on the biggest cleaning binge. To be perfectly honest with you,” he says conspiratorially, “people have accused me of being a neat freak before. By the way where do you keep your pans?”

Dexter can feel a smile tugging at his lips.

“Ah, just to your left, the bottom cabinet and the seasoning is just above it,” he points. “That’s exactly what my sister always tells me. Something about having an OCD disorder. But at least I can see my floor.”

Rudy laughs as he pulls the pan out and drizzles oil on it before setting it on the stove to heat up, then he walks towards the end of the counter and opens a bottle for himself. He takes a sip of cold beer and starts seasoning the cuts. Dexter can appreciate the precision with which the man operates in the kitchen.

There’s something nagging at him though. 

“How did you know I live alone?” He asks.

Rudy makes a confused mmm? sound and he elaborates, “I mean, since you clearly brought only two stakes.”

Even before he finishes the sentence he can see the realization form in Rudy’s eyes. His face settles into a disgruntled expression and he leans towards Dexter a bit, almost like he’s going to share a secret.

“Oh yeah, well you see, yesterday I ran into Simon. The guy in 102,” the meaningful look Rudy shoots him makes Dexter snort into his beer.

Simon is the resident busybody, always up in everyone’s business. If you let him, he will talk the ears off of you. Dexter does what he can to avoid him. Looks like Rudy didn’t have the same luck.

“You have my sympathies.”

Rudy cracks a smile, “I’d rather have some pepper spray.”

They share a chuckle and Dexter thinks that maybe this meet-and-greet won’t be too terrible.      

“Mmm. So, anything I should know about this place? Any resident crazies that I should avoid?” He asks.

Yes, me.

“Didn’t Simon fill you in?” He teases and Rudy makes a face.

“Let’s just say I don’t completely trust his judgement. So?”

“Ah, no. No, I don’t think so,” you’re really asking the wrong person. “Unless you count the cat lady in the 118. Trust me, if she invites you for tea, don’t go,” he cautions only half-jokingly.  

Rudy nods and takes another sip. “Avoid crazy cat lady. Gotcha. What about you? How long have you been here?” He asks, then turns to lay the meat into the hot pan. The moment it touches the heated metal it starts sizzling and Dexter’s mouth waters.

“Uh, about eight years now.” He says and Rudy makes a surprised noise.

“Wow.”

“Yeah, like I said, there’s no real problems here. It’s remote, peaceful. There’s less crime in this part of the city, so I guess that’s part of it.”

With the 20% rate of closed cases, Miami is a nest of crime, like a beacon, calling to the dark side of society. Perfect for people like him.

Viva Miami. 

Rudy hums in confirmation. “How do you like your steak?”

“Medium rare. So, what’s your story?” He enquires and his guest shoots him an amused look.

“My story?” He repeats.

“Isn’t that what people ask when they try to find out more about a stranger?”

“Oh, do they? It sounds more like something out of a romantic comedy.” Dexter’s lips twitch. It does sound a bit cheesy.

Rudy takes out another pan and starts on the eggs. “There’s not much to say really. I grew up in Miami, but then went to France and enrolled into Sorbonne university. I studied the human form and got my degree. Then I came back to America, traveled around a bit and now I’m back here.”

“Couldn’t keep away?”

“Home is where the heart is, as they say,” he flashes him a smile. Dexter never really understood that. Home is wherever you make it. But maybe it’s just him.

“Still, why France? That’s a big change to make.”

Rudy fishes out two plates and puts a steak and an egg on each. He hands one to Dexter and walks around the counter to join him at the kitchen island.

“My mom died in a car accident,” he says and Dexter is immediately uncomfortable. He never quite knows how to deal with situations like these.

“Oh, sorry.”

Rudy glances at him. “Don’t be. It was a long time ago. At the time I felt like I needed a change, so France it was. It was the first place I could think of,” he casually shrugs the matter off and Dexter is grateful.

“Now I work in prosthetics,” he adds and Dexter looks up curiously from his meal.

“Really? How’s that going for you?”

“Well what can I say. Mostly boring, arts and crafts. But every once in a while you get to hear a horror story from a patient. A chainsaw, a car crash, the likes. What about you?”

If there’s one thing about Rudy that Dexter can really appreciate, it’s his apparent flippant attitude. It’s refreshing, hearing someone talk about severed body parts without the over the top squeamishness, or cringing away in sympathy, trying to circumvent the topic entirely. but he supposes all doctors have to shed that if they want to work with patients. After seeing severed bodies day in day out it must dull the initial shock factor of it all.

“I was adopted by the Morgan family when I was three. Been in Miami my whole life, didn’t travel much. My dad was a cop, and my sister is one as well. I work in the forensics. Blood spatter analyst.” He takes another bite of food. The steak is delicious.

“Huh, a family tradition then?”

“Uh, yeah. I guess it is.”

“So what’s the latest juicy horror story in your corner of the world?”

Dexter’s mind immediately jumps to the lovely stacks of bloodless body parts he was admiring just hours before, but he can hardly discuss them with Rudy.

“Just the regular I guess.” He looks up just in time to see Rudy’s face contort in a strange way that he can’t quite interpret before it’s smoothed over.

“There’s such a thing as regular in your business?” He asks. Dexter grins a bit at the slight note of suspicion in his voice.

“There’s regular in every business.”

“Ah. Touché. I suppose your regular involves a lot more blood than other regulars.”

“Well, I did say I’m a blood spatter analyst so yes. A lot more.”

“Oooh.” He says it with such a straight face Dexter can’t help but huff out a laugh. “Exciting,” he continues.

“Not as exciting as one might think. Lots of paperwork involved.”

“Ugh. Paperwork. The enemy of us all,” he cringes.

The rest of the dinner passes by rather quickly and soon enough Rudy is packing up. Dexter walks him to the door with a grin on his face. This turned out better than he thought.

“Well, this was fun. Thanks for indulging me.” Rudy says when he crosses the doorway and Dexter shrugs.

“Hey, thanks for the dinner.”

“No problem. Stop by for a beer sometime.”

“Sure.”

With that, he walks back inside and locks the door.  

Chapter Text

Regular.

Brian is lying sprawled on his bed, the covers tangled messily around his limbs, almost like a prison made of soft silk holding him hostage. It feels suffocating. So much so, that he has half a mind to kick them off of him entirely and risk freezing through the night.

He doesn’t. The strength to move is just not there. He’s like a puppet made to dance only to be discarded an hour later, stuffed into a dark closet, forgotten, with no means available to move on its own.

He stares at his bedroom ceiling, unblinking.

The feeling of a warm hand squeezing his own still lingers, like a hundred needles pricking his flesh, and he has to flex his fingers to make sure the phantom sensation is really just a figment of his imagination. Goosebumps erupt on his skin as he remembers the way that quiet, modulated voice, almost toneless in nature, floated in the air, cosseted his eardrums and caressed his internal organs like an old lover. Even now, hours later, pleasant shivers run down his spine at the thought.

And yet, the euphoria that stems from finally interacting with his sibling is dampened by the invisible wall stretching between them. Separating them. Driving them apart until they can’t see, can’t hear, can’t feel anything but this fake echo of reality.  

He hates that he cannot talk to his brother honestly, without pretenses. This play at normalcy between them feels … forced.

In his mind he replays the evening over and over again, as if trying to commit every single detail to memory. He thinks of the way light caught in Dexter’s dead eyes, the little half smiles that were more twitches of lips than anything else, and the almost pleasant atmosphere in their small shut off world accompanied by the mouthwatering smell of cooked meat.

His fingers twitch, curling tighter into the soft bedsheets, trying to pluck the images plaguing the innermost walls of his psyche and holding them in suffocating tightness so they may never slip out of his grasp.

His poor little brother, so obviously uncomfortable around people. He wonders if Dexter acts like that around everyone. He hopes not. The audacious monster peering from behind Dexter’s eyes is just about playing a game of peek-a-boo: there one second, gone the next.  

While Brian appreciates the short guest appearances of Dexter’s shadowy companion - savors them like fine vintage wine, his taste buds chasing the fragrant flavor - he can safely say the rest of society should have been quite alarmed indeed.

It’s a marvel that no one seems to be suspicious of him. But then people always try to justify the odd, deviating elements skulking around in their lives.

“Oh, Dexter, such a sweet guy, he couldn’t possibly. No, no, certainly not.”

The French proverb slithers easily through his mind; Il n’y a pas plus sourd que celui qui ne veut pas entendre; there are none so deaf as those who do not want to hear. And of course no one wants to hear. The fools.

Or maybe he’s overthinking, people are incredibly stupid beings after all. Maybe no one had ever even noticed. Still, why risk someone with a brain coming along?

Later, when their masks slip off and the tired song comes to an end, he’ll have to take the time to teach him how to move with the crowd, show him all the little tricks of pretending to be human. Clearly Harry Morgan did a poor job of it. It’s ok though, that’s what big brothers are for, right?

He feels a stab of frustration at the thought that he’ll have to work for the right to teach Dexter anything, while the Morgans took it for granted.

He tries to focus on more pleasant topics, but his traitorous mind jumps at the opportunity to point out that Dexter probably didn’t even really enjoy his company. Not yet in any case. For now, he is only a persistent neighbor; another sheep in the sea of mindless livestock. His mouth twists into a grimace as his thoughts turn unpleasantly sour.

The way Dexter contemplated if he wants to spend the hour in Brian’s company irks him - like he’s not worth the time. Nothing personal, he understands. Unfortunately, intellectually understanding doesn’t spare him from feeling … betrayed.

He had thought, for some inexplicable reason, that Dexter would instantly know, that he would automatically treat Brian separately from the boring, every day flock. But why would he? Brian is a master of disguise after all. Of course his poor brother can’t tell. No one can.

So why is he disappointed?

His Shadow bristles at the (unintended) insult hurled at them by Dear Dexter.

It was quite a bit rude how he had to basically manhandle him into agreeing to dinner. And well, if Brian were anyone else he wouldn’t feel very welcome, with Dexter practically oozing awkward leave-me-alone vibes.

No wonder he doesn’t have any friends.

He huffs at the bitter thought.   

The shadows cast strange shapes when they crawl and twist on the white walls like some bizarre caricatures of his inner demons and he finds himself admiring them. His own Shadow is stirring unhappily.

His mind jumps back to that word like a broken record; Regular.

Was Dexter serious when he implied Brian’s work is just another day at the job? He can’t be sure. He must have developed high standards, given how long he’s been perfecting the craft. Does this mean that to him, Brian’s art is subpar? He can’t shake the thought – it sank its sharp claws into his vulnerable brain earlier this evening and now he can’t pry it off.

Logically he is aware that can’t be true; he’s seen Dexter’s kills. Not the whole process of course, but enough to get a good feel on it. He even dived several feet to admire the severed parts a bit closer. Beautifully cut pieces to be sure, but missing some vital ingredient. A little something scampering just out of sight.

Really, it almost felt a bit like Dexter was disposing of the trash. No art to it, no feeling.

Dear Deficient Dexter doesn’t allow himself to enjoy it; not fully.

But why?

The victims are his one chance to let go, to drop the mask, be who he is; to really, truly enjoy himself. And yet, he denies himself the pleasure. Brian wonders how much of this was influenced by Harry.

Could Morgan the step-dad really have such a monopoly on Dexter’s life? Are the rules of the game wound so tight around his baby brother that he doesn’t care to look for freedom, or-

Or what?

Is the act of murder something … shameful to Dexter? Does he … does he want to be like other humans?

He shakes his head. No, no that’s not it.

He switches his position on the bed so he’s facing the darkened window. For the first time in his life he experiences the uncomfortable sensation of not being able to turn off his mind and just let sleep claim him, drag him under into the deep dark. Instead, his thoughts whir around the issue of his brother and the possible outcomes of the near future.

No matter how logically he presents and unravels the matter, there is constant doubt throbbing in his chest. He’s missing a piece of the puzzle.

What if the temptation of Brian’s kills is not enough for Dexter? If Dexter is less affected by them than he thought, this plan was destined to fail from the very start. His excitingly demented brother wouldn’t leave his constructed life behind for something that he thinks isn’t worth it. Perhaps not even after he finds out he has a brother.

He has learned that Dexter, like many serial killers, loves routine and Brian is anything but. In sharp contrast to his sibling, Brian is impulsive, improvising as he goes. He brings with him chaos and disorder, spreading them like they are courting gifts that Death accepts with loving arms, and suddenly he’s not so sure if Dexter would appreciate that.

As much as they are the same, they are also contrary.

What if there really is a part of Dexter that doesn’t like killing (as ridiculous as he finds the thought)? What if he is too blinded by Harry or god forbid, what if that waste of space called Debra holds his brother’s affections? No. He can’t let him slip out of his grasp – not now that he has finally found him.

He's overthinking, he knows he is, and yet-

Brian can almost hear the crack of his plans when they shatter into a million pieces in his mind. He had everything planned out. Every step of the way, every pinnacle he was supposed to reach.

The sound of a car driving nearby reaches his ears. He slowly breaths out.

It’s ok. He is used to this. Plans don’t always work out and that’s ok. The important thing is that he adjusts them according to the new data.

Perhaps Dexter didn’t mean what he said, but he can’t be sure and this is something Brian has to be sure of. This is much too important to be left to chance and wild speculation.

Fortune favors the bold, but that is not synonymous to being recklessly stupid.

He will have to tempt the beast he knows resides in the dark corners of Dexter's mind, seduce it with play dates and promises. He will give his demanding little brother something to feast his eyes on.

Brian’s thoughts turn sharply to the unfortunate Tony Tucci, stored away in the deserted hospital. He wanted to take Dexter down the bloody memory lane, but that option seems unattractive. A severed limb seems too boring now.

He needs to raise the bar.

He needs to improve.

He is sure Dexter would have connected the places of the severed limbs and photos to Harry sooner or later. Now he must find another method to show him the ugly truth. Only when he shatters the perfect image Dexter seems to have of his adoptive father will Brian be able to make his move; showing him another road to explore.

He closes his eyes and tries to relax into the fluffy pillows and soft sheets.

He’s not entirely sure what to do, how to tackle this problem, now that his original plan is lost to the icy winds. His Shadow is churning out ideas that don’t appeal and there’s no one else to turn to.

My darling brother, my other half, you made a right mess out of me.

Around three AM Brian falls into an exhausted sleep.

The front porch is glistening in the warm sunlight. He sits on the first step with his hands wrapped around his knees and stares out into the street. The neighborhood isn’t the best; he can hear the glass shatter in the house next door followed by enraged screaming. The material of his shorts feels slightly itchy, but he doesn’t complain. Occasionally a car passes by and he can hear a soft melody carried by the wind. It’s the old song mom listens to all the time. It’s slowly gaining in volume until he can hear the words as clear as day:

Tie a yellow ribbon ‘round the ole Oak tree

It’s been three long years, do you still want me?

The door behind him creaks open and his mom steps out, bringing with her the smell of strawberries. She smiles at him and runs her rainbow nails through his hair.

“My little sunshine,” she coos.

Then she descends the steps and her blue dress is fluttering in the wind as she glides towards the sunlit garden. He thinks she looks like one of those forest fairies mom sometimes tells him about before bed. He stands up. After a second he follows in her footsteps and observes her while she lovingly caresses the petals of the different flowers growing in their garden. It’s like she is willing them to grow on her love alone.

She hums along with the song. Then she turns to him and beckons him closer. His little feet move to her side and they both crouch in front of the flowerbed.  

“Look,” his mama whispers. “See that little cluster of blue flowers?” She asks. Brian squints and after a moment his eyes find them, almost hidden amidst their larger counterparts. He nods seriously and his mom chuckles. He loves her laughs; they are always so warm.

“Those are called the Forget-me-nots.”

He turns to look at her with wide eyes. She must sense his confusion because she smacks a kiss on his head and explains.

“Every flower is unique and just like humans, every flower has a name. But you know what else?” She waits for him to shake his head, then continues: “every flower also has a meaning.” There is a faraway look in her eyes that Brian doesn’t understand.

“A foxglove is a Wish, Hawthorn represents Hope, Live Oak means Liberty.”

Brian shyly peeks at her through his fringe. “Then, the Forget-me-nots mean don’t forget me?” he asks. She smiles at him, “that’s right, sunshine,” then goes back to observing the flowers and runs her fingers along the small blue petals.

Suddenly, out of the blue, he feels a lead weight drop in his stomach.

Something is wrong. He has to tell her something, but he’s not sure what. His mom starts singing along with the song and even though he didn’t move an inch, there is distance growing between them, like the ground is liquid and it’s carrying him further and further away. In his growing panic, he quickly stumbles to his feet.

“Mama!” He screams to her, but she can’t seem to hear him. The song from the radio is drowning out his distress.

                I’m still in prison

                And my love, she holds the key

                A simple yellow ribbon’s what I need to set me free.

He wakes up frozen, his heart beating in his chest.

For a long while it feels like he is trapped in a time capsule where everything is standing still, static, unmoving. Then his Shadow rouses from the depths of his psyche and slides into the driver seat. Brian is more than happy to let it do as it pleases.

He’s only half aware while completing his morning ritual. He showers, gets dressed, and makes coffee.

He holds the warm cup in his hands and enjoys the smell wafting to his nose. He savors the bitter taste rolling across his tongue and slowly starts to engage his higher functions.

Finally, his mind gets in gear and then - even he was a bit thrown by the resulting anarchy.  

It felt like his brain took a shot of adrenaline because suddenly his mind is full of ideas and suggestions and a plan is forming almost faster than he can follow. There’s a pleased rumble from his Shadow and a smile is forming on Brian’s face.

He hums the song from the 70s all the way to work.

...

Dust motes dance around the stagnant air of the desolate hospital. He walks quickly, confidently, down the dark hallway and descends the metal staircase like some sort of a demon come to claim the lives of his offerings, his Shadow wriggling its talons in anticipation. He follows the trail of fear and despair leading to his newest sacrifice lying motionless on the raised altar, his soul ready and ripe, waiting to be harvested.

He doesn’t bother being quiet and the clanking sound rouses his guest.

“Who’s there?” The little pig squeals.

Brian doesn’t answer and the silence stretches between them like a foreboding chill while he prepares a tranquilizer. It won’t do for someone to hear Tony as he’s being transported for slaughter.

The chemicals in the syringe seem to bubble and hiss excitedly when broken pleas sever the silence and soft sobs get suspended in the air. Brian walks around the table and runs a gloved hand down the man’s face.

“Shhhh. It’s ok,” he tells him softly.

A wet hiccup is his only answer. Before it can be followed by more blabber, he stabs the needle into the fat neck and watches the liquid flow out of the plastic container. Poor, terrified Tony spasms and chokes, like a fish flopping out of water and Brian stifles a giggle.

A dinner and a show, his Shadow chuckles.

It takes a while, but in the end he finally succumbs, his muscles loosing strength, head lolling uselessly to the side. It’s almost a touch dramatic, a show indeed.

He undoes the straps tying his victim to the gurney and goes to find something he could use to lug him up in, since the stretcher is too inconvenient. The rooms are all in poor condition, almost nothing left in them bar some forgotten chairs and unusable, chunky equipment. The doors squeak and groan from the lack of maintenance and the stale air is almost unbearable.

This feels a bit like a beginning to a horror film. Shame that he’s the only monster around.

He finds a wheelchair in one of the rooms. It’s rusty and disgusting, but at least it’s still usable. Although an appliance dolly would be nice, he simply doesn’t have the time to search for one, if there are any still left in this place at all. It’s just so much easier to get something heavy up the stairs with the help of wheels.

The walk back is much faster and soon he’s unfolding the wheelchair next to the bed, then fixes the breaks.

Trying to lift Tony into a sitting position and failing spectacularly, he reluctantly admits he did not quite think this through.

The hospital bed is at the height that is just preventing Brian from utilizing most of his strength. Tony’s significant body mass and his frankly disgusting lack of cooperation of any kind makes this even harder.

Rage hits him like a speeding truck and he angrily slaps the levers of the ambulance stretcher while sending a kick to the anterior legs. They gurney comes crashing down and he watches, slightly mollified, as Tony hits the ground with a loud smacking sound.

He grabs Tucci under the armpits and after two tries somehow manages to howl Tony into the seat.

For a few seconds he simply stares at this … this abrasive headache and imagines all the different ways of killing him, while slowly letting the anger float away.

When he finally feels in control he lets out a sigh, a hand roughly massaging the bridge of his nose.

This is a two-man job, honestly.

While he’s lugging the 250 pounds of human meat and fat up the stairs, he really starts to wish he hadn’t stored him in the basement. How unnecessarily cliché of him.

Finally, after much sweat and effort on his part he reaches the blessed ground floor. Brian takes a moment to catch his breath and focuses on stabilizing his heart rate.

Whoever said the work of a killer was easy, needs to reevaluate. This must be the most demanding job he’s ever had and no one appreciates it. No vacation days either. Although the payout is great.

Breathlessly, he chuckles at his own thoughts and continues toward the exit. The wheels squeak on the old linoleum floor.

When he crosses the entrance of the building he has the decency to appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of his situation. Good thing this place is abandoned, otherwise someone might have asked questions about the passed out naked cripple being transported by a gloved, hooded man. Not suspicious at all.

He quickly stuffs Tony in the trunk and folds the wheelchair which is then placed on the backseat. For a moment he mourns the cleanliness of his car, then discards the thought. Now is not the time.

The car ride passes quickly and before he knows it, he’s back to his old apartment.

“Will you walk into my parlor?” He asks the unconscious man when he’s opening the door to his freezer. He doesn’t get an answer, but his Shadow squirms pleasantly in his chest and little fireworks of dopamine are being set off in his brain. He’s already salivating at the prospect of new prey.

He straps the portly man to his table then turns to leave. While Tony Tucci is cooling, he has some work to do. He walks to his kitchen and takes the pre-ordered flowers out of the vase.

After his beloved mother visited him in his dream three weeks ago, he knew just how to communicate with his little brother. She always had the best advice, always knew just what to say, and it would be foolish not to take this one to heart. She showed him the way, now he only has to make the best of it.

While he wants the message to be relatively clear, he also needs to make this little gift better than the last few hookers.

Just cutting them up won’t do anymore since little Dexy seems to be a picky eater. That’s ok. Big Brother will step up to the challenge.

“Neeaaaw, here comes the airplane, open wide.” He delivers in a complete monotone while his Shadow cracks up somewhere in the dark attic.

He cheerfully hums under his breath and starts cutting the stems to an appropriate length. The flowery scent hangs in the air and the steady sound of snip, snip, snip accompanies the low baritone of his voice. He takes care not to damage the silky petals and almost reverently lays them in a neat row.

When he’s finished, he walks back into the freezer, slits Tony’s throat and lets the heart do the work, pumping out sticky red sustenance that glistens in the florescent light like a thousand rubies. He’s a bit disappointed Tony didn’t wake up. For a few minutes he stands there and appreciates the sight of blood running into the container, slowly filling it. There is nothing quite so cathartic as seeing the life slip out of someone’s body. His Shadow is practically purring in the dark recesses of his mind.

He shakes of the lingering euphoria and returns to the kitchen. Since he has some time to kill, he makes himself a cup of coffee and turns on the TV. For the past few days the news channel has been blasting the images of Tony Tucci, the current suspect of the Ice Truck Killer case.

Brian takes a moment to appreciate how terrifically stupid that name sounds. Ice Truck Killer, really? It almost sounds like he’s killing Ice Trucks instead of humans. He scoffs at the absurdness. He liked his other moniker better. Maybe he’ll leave a clue just to see if they catch the connection. Given how incompetent Maria Laguerta and her department seems to be, he wouldn’t be surprised if it flew right past her Botox infused face. 

Dexter might be able to figure it out.

He chases the thought out of his head. Too risky.

For a while he listens to the blond reporter assuring the audience that the police are doing everything in their power to get their hands on this elusive killer.

“Be careful what you wish for.” He mumbles.

Fed up with the nonsense, he grabs the remote off the table and switches to cartoons. Tom and Jerry was always his favorite.

The clanking sounds of pots and pans hitting the floor fills the silence. A gasp. A scream. He giggles when the mouse swallows an entire orange and gains its shape.

A sense of nostalgia fills the space under his ribs and he can’t help but recall the peppy Sunday mornings spent in front of the old, bulky TV, wrapped in frayed blankets, chortling and cheering and playing. He remembers the flashes of memory in sepia – almost too bright. Dexter’s smile stands out like a beacon.

It really was such a lovely era.

Brian is not one to live in the past, but in times like these, when the stark contrast of before versus now hits him, he sometimes quietly wishes he could have died that day with his mother.

The morbid thought, when it comes, always manages to take him by surprise.

Soon enough he bats it away and refocuses. There is no use contemplating what ifs. He is here, he is alive and so is his brother. That’s all that matters.         

When the clock strikes midnight he turns off the television and flicks on the radio. Frank Sinatra plays while he dons his apron and gloves like an expensive tuxedo. The ritual is intoxicating and he lets himself appreciate every nuance of joy that passes through his rusty receptors. 

He walks to the freezer and dully registers his Shadow howling for blood. The cold greets him by adoringly caressing his skin and his breath condenses in the air around him, creating little white clouds that float towards the ceiling. He flicks the switch and the table lowers back into horizontal position with a low whirring sound.

The different knifes and saws glint in the harsh light like predator’s teeth in the dark and he can’t help but admire them, running his fingers over the tools set on the table. Momentarily his thoughts flicker to his brother and how nice it would be, to have an appreciative audience sharing in his dark desires. His Shadow cheeps in enthusiastic agreement; it would like a companion of its own.  

Then he shakes out of his musings - Tony is patiently waiting to be turned into an art after all.

He takes the scalpel off the table, swiftly turns, like a Kapellmeister directing an orchestra, closes in on Tucci and promptly begins cutting away Tony’s eyelids. Precision is in his nature and Brian takes pride in his neat work. He tosses the excess flesh into the bin with a flourish. Now for the eyeballs. He tries to be as clean as possible, but eyes are always tricky. Finally, he manages to take out both peepers and cleans up the excess mess spilling out of the sockets with a wet rag.

He fetches the first two flowers and slides them into the now empty spaces.

He thinks of the time so many years ago, when he helplessly watched his little brother be taken away from him by Harry’s arms. He thinks about the past and the last happy memories his eyes perceived, thinks of what could have been, if they were not so brutally separated.

The two red Pheasant’s Eyes now stare from Tony’s face.

He walks back to his work-table and lays down the scalpel. The blood drips to the metal surface in a starkness that speaks of barbarity, as if a horrified scream pierced the silent night. Brian shudders in exhilaration. His hand then moves slowly toward a medium sized kitchen knife and he slides his palm under the handle in a loose grip, like it’s the start of a slow waltz and he’s asking for a dance.

His movements become relaxed and gentle.

He makes an incision at Tony’s shoulder and starts to carefully flay the skin and meat from the joint all the way to the fingertips, slowly exposing the white bones, scraping so very carefully in order to preserve the smooth surface. The entirety of the left arm is soon completely bare and Brian’s thoughts turn to Debra like a shark catching the scent of blood. Oh, how he would love to exchange her for little old Tony. The way she clings to Dexter, trying to steal him away while whining like some –

He quickly shuts down that train of thought. There is a reason he tries to avoid thinking of that dumb bint. He’s not sure why his little brother wastes his time with her. Dull as dishwater and dead from the neck up. His mouth twists into a grimace.

Her time will come soon enough, and when it does, Brian will enjoy it to the fullest.  

He redirects his focus to the task at hand. Admittedly, the hands require a bit more concentration (so many joints), but he slowly and methodically finishes without any complications.

The other arm is soon finished. Then he flays both knees, so the legs look like they are grotesquely attached. 

For a hot second he thinks about skinning the feet as well, but – nope, not touching that, gross.          

When he’s finally done he puts the knife back on the table and fetches the wheelchair he stole from the abandoned hospital. He carefully transfers Tony back into it, arranges his arms and legs and corrects his posture so he doesn’t slouch.

He grabs the small circular saw and flicks the ON button. It comes to life with a high pitched noise that Brian simply adores. Deftly he starts cutting off Tony’s scalp. One slow horizontal drag through the forehead all the way through the back and Brian has a lovely setting for an ikebana. Lower half of the half-frozen brain that remained inside Tony’s skull will serve as a spongy container while the unusable top makes its way to the bin.

He fetches all of the pre-cut flowers and picks out one Iris. He pierces the soft brain with the stem, sticks it in at the very edge of the scull. The body suddenly jerks and he curses out loud when he almost crushes the flower in his hand. Fucking spinal reflex.

He shakes of the booming thunder of rage that flashes through him and concentrates instead on the squishy tissue. Next to the Iris he plants a small cluster of Rosebay Rhododendrons and inserts small twigs on each side to make it more presentable. Right next to them he puts Dogbane and on the other side Sorrel.

All in all, the finished project didn’t look half bad. Flower arranging is minimalistic in its nature, so Brian restrains himself from adding more extravagant touches to it. If he did, the message would be harder to figure out as well. He is satisfied with the design, so he grabs the circular saw again and starts cutting off the head. The previous incision he made to bleed him dry only quickens the process and soon he is putting the severed head into the man’s lap. He arranges the bonny hands so they hold it still and takes a step back to admire his work.

Not bad, if he does say so himself.

Suddenly, a thought about Dullahans pops into his head.

Mother was of Irish descent so his childhood was filled with mythological tales and strange stories without rhyme or reason. He fishes for the necessary information in the hazy, washed up memories.

He knows that headless riders usually signify death. Where the Dullahan stops his horse or wagon, that is where a person is due to die. Brian thinks it’s fitting - even though Tony only has a small carriage and no horse.

In the back of his head he can dully remember his mother saying the headless fairies don’t like being watched. Those who do, get a basin of blood thrown at them.

His gaze wanders over to the plastic container filled with blood and cocks his head. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.

Brian likes the new imagery well enough. He likes the symbolism of it; when he stops moving, another person dies. The basin of blood will also get thrown at the Miami police (those nosy rats), a room full of it in fact.

This should also keep them off his trail. Let them stumble around in the obscure Celtic mythology.

Now, if his memory serves, the Dullahan’s carriage had multiple funeral objects. Candles? Or perhaps lanterns? He’s not sure, but he supposes one can never go wrong with candles. If they have no relation to the mythological creature, they can be there for the atmosphere.

He looks at the clock.

Just enough time to set things up.

The moon.

It calls to me, beckoning.

The need coils itself tighter inside my chest.

Like a snake preparing to strike.

Waiting.

He loves evenings like this one.

When the temperature drops and the Sun starts to fall from its spot in the heavens, leaving the opening for its celestial twin. The Moon, just peeking from the sky, looking down, adoringly observing her brood.

Dexter likes to think he has a special spot among her children.

He leans against the rail in front of his apartment door, enjoying the evening wind and the sound of cicadas, their droning crescendo like a symphony playing for the opening act.

Today is really no different than any other day; he woke up, went to work, ate, saw Rita and finally returned home. Yet, there is something in the air tonight, something like a distant call of your name.

He stretches his muscles and walks back inside.    

Today Rita helped the neighbor’s dog find a new home after being annoyed by its barking day and night. Truth be told he wouldn’t mind if the neighbor disappeared as well, but unfortunately she doesn’t fit the profile, doesn’t satisfy the code. How tragic. Although he kind of liked the automated skeleton.

This month blew past him faster and at the same time slower than usual. Halloween is fast approaching and he almost didn’t notice. Perhaps he should schedule a kill for celebration.  

Dexter was kept busy by small crimes here and there, while the security tapes kept his sister tied to the sidelines and grumpier than ever. Consequently, they haven’t really interacted much and when they did, Deb usually just grumbled at him. Or hissed. Or snarled. Not the most fun he’s seen her. But on the other, more cheerful note, Doakes was being followed around by suspicious looking men, probably Guerrero’s, and just that brought unrepentant joy to Dexter. It's the little things, you know?

Angel’s anniversary came around and after a few days of this silly back-and-forth game, he finally chose some kind of a pendant for his lovely wife. Or so he heard. He has the feeling his coworker doesn’t have an eye for jewelry. Or accessories in general. That hat is atrocious. 

He was a bit bummed when a few days later he heard that they caught Guerrero with his hand in the cookie jar, so to speak. The good sergeant even got a shiner to prove his valor.

Other than those little mishaps his day to day has been fine. A bit boring perhaps, but fine.

Except how it really wasn’t, and while his mask is still in place, still perfect, there is a jittery air about him, like an itch he can’t scratch, because of this one small detail –

No Ice Truck Killer.

Not a whisper of any bloodless bodies anywhere.

No clue, nothing.

Nada.

Of course serial killers can go months, even years without killing, but why would he disappear now? After he has been so active, a month of radio silence was a bit worrying.

He absolutely refuses to believe the killer is Tony Tucci. Everyone in the department speculate about it, humming and hawing like the mindless sheep that they are, and the large majority agree that Tucci must be their one and only. The fact that the Ice Truck Killer disappeared right after they proclaimed Tucci the murderer just made them stick to their theory that much harder. Nothing seems to convince them otherwise. Dexter was half annoyed by it and half glad for it.

At this point the suspense mixed with boredom will be the main cause of Dexter’s gray hair. He really needs to take a break soon. And by break he means stalk Jorge Castillo so he can drug him and slice him into tiny little pieces and watch his blood saturate the room.

He stops himself when he feels short nails digging into his palm.

Dexter feels messy, off kilter. Almost like what he thinks drug addicts must feel going through withdrawal.

In order to distract himself he makes a quick dinner and plops in front of the TV. A good sandwich always manages to lighten the mood. The news channel doesn’t offer anything new, so he switches to a movie that he only pays half attention to, his thoughts and focus flitting from his mystery friend to the awful, cheesy romance developing in front of his eyes.

By the time the end credits are rolling it’s already way past 12 o’clock and Dexter contemplates whether he wants to move or just sleep on the couch. His back would not thank him in the morning that’s for sure. With an air of defeat, he manages to make his way to the bathroom. He quickly brushes his teeth, then crawls between the sheets. He effortlessly slips into the deep dark nihility -

And gets promptly awoken by his cellphone not even five hours later. His eyes snap open and his Passenger coils tightly in his chest. He takes a moment to shake off the lingering sleepiness and assesses his surroundings. His phone vibrates on the nightstand and he answers with a half yawned “Uh, ’ello?”

The woman on the other end drones out something like an apology and he tries to catch up to her flinging information at him at high speed. He is being called in by MPD, requesting his assistance at Angel of Mercy Hospital for a case.

He bites his lip to stifle a sigh.

Dear God.

He assures her he knows where it is and no, he doesn’t need coordinates, thank you.

As always his efficiency kicks into gear and he’s ready to go in 15 minutes. He bounds to his car and longingly wishes he had more time for some coffee and breakfast. His body doesn’t appreciate the lack of sleep and he has to constantly bite down on yawns that threaten to overtake his face.

At 5.34 AM the roads are nearly deserted. He quite likes that. It makes him feel free. Like he can shed all of his masks; the Brother, the Boyfriend, the Coworker, the Human. They drip off of his face like oil and he finds himself breathing easier than he had in a while.

It doesn’t last of course. Only too soon he sees the outline of the old hospital and the flashing lights of police sirens.

He parks the car on the other side of the road and shuts off the engine. The chilly air hits him when he steps out of the car. Miami is rarely ever cold, but tonight the temperature dropped and while it’s not cold exactly, Dexter is pleasantly surprised by the crispness of the wind.

He gathers his camera bag and jogs across the street. Debra greets him at the crime scene, pale and wide eyed, her arms tightly crossed over her chest. Some might think it’s because of the cold, but Dexter knows her better. She’s distressed.

How peculiar. His sister is not one to be rattled easily. And look at her now, looking like a little girl after a nightmare. Eyes large and dull, her shoulders hunched up, arms wrapped around herself like that will keep the monsters away.

Needless to say Dexter is immediately intrigued. What could have possibly made her look like she’s seen a ghost? He waves at her and nods when he’s close enough.

“Hey, Deb. What’s going on?” he asks.

His sister flaps her mouth for a moment, no sound coming out of her. Finally, she chokes out: “Shit Dex.” And stops again. The confusion gnaws at him.

He looks at her inquiringly and she hesitantly elaborates. “It’s Tucci, Dex, Jesus…” She runs a hand over her face, like she wants to get rid of the picture in her head, but can’t quite make it.

“Oh.” Apparently he can’t get much out of his mouth either.

Then his brain catches up to the words that came out of her mouth and it feels like a sucker punch to the chest. He sucks in a breath, almost too loud for the morbid atmosphere around him and all at once he feels wide awake.

Tony, Tony Tucci, the Ice Truck Killer, the killer, no, the victim now, he killed him, of course he did, he wouldn’t let the media blatantly assign his projects to some security guard, and, oh, finally, finally, he’s back.

The uncoordinated thoughts fly through his mind at amazing speeds and he feels lightheaded. He really is an addict. The jittery excitement is almost uncomfortable in its intensity. It makes him feel like a child. He absently wonders what kind of a present he’s getting this time. He is this close to clapping his hands like an excited little schoolgirl and he can feel a goofy grin trying to overta-  

Then, suddenly, it hits him.

No blood.

He feels the excitement die and the world tilts on its axis.

Why in the world would the police department call him? They don’t need him here at all, he’s a blood spatter analyst and this killer drains the victim. So why?

He is completely flabbergasted and if this emotional ping pong doesn’t stop, he thinks he might just pass out.

Well, maybe not, but it doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable.

“I’ll just…go take a look then.”

The curiosity is picking up speed again.

He mumbles something else and slithers away from his emotional sister. Walking further into the lion’s den he realizes he forgot to ask Debra if she’s ok and offer comfort - like a good, stable brother would have done - but the thought is just a drop in the ocean and it gets drowned in his focus dedicated solely to his mystery friend.

His steps are quiet as he sticks to the shadows, anticipation rising once again like a tide wave.

The first thing he sees is the artificial light shining brightly in the distance and something more, something like dancing shadows. How strange. Is it a candle?

He hurries his step, he’s anxious to see, so very excited, almost needy.

He sees Masuka and Angel but they don’t mater. All that matters is the body. He expects great things. And-

Well.

His friend didn’t disappoint.

Not at all.

Tony Tucci is sitting in a wheelchair, headless, both of his arms flayed. One bony hand is holding on to the severed head sitting in his lap, the other is hanging to the side, off the wheelchair, a bucket of blood held tightly in its grasp. His own probably (ah, so that's why they need him). And the head. Dexter feels a pleasant shiver run down his spine. There are red flowers staring where the eyes should have been and poor Tony has donated his scalp so the lower half of the skull could have been used as a vase. He is surrounded by white candles that were artistically arranged in small clusters, giving Tucci an ethereal glow even with all the artificial lights LAPD brought with them.

Dexter feels a warm liquid sensation in his abdomen. It splatters and squeezes and he feels heat rushing to his face. He hopes he’s not blushing. That would be … What would his coworkers think?

He takes deep breaths, forces himself not to outright pant. His body is suddenly so difficult to control. Is this how other people meander through life? No wonder they act so stupidly ridiculous if they have to deal with this … emotion.

The muscles in his thighs become tense, like he’s preparing to sprint out there and … and what?

Dexter realizes he has been stupidly staring for the past half a minute. He should really move.

The dark passenger assures him none of his colleagues have seen him yet. He has some more time to appreciate the sight, cloaked in the darkness as he is.

“Is this what you wanted me to see?”

His friend really is an artist.

He stumbles to the nearest tree and almost collapses against it, letting it hold his weight. His eyes become half-lidded as goosebumps erupt all over his body.  

He imagines all the work that had to be done, fantasizes about a dark figure slowly, methodically cutting away excess flesh, caressing the bare bones he unveiled, the precision with which he arranged the flowers.

With a sudden jolt he realizes he’s getting hard.

Shit.

The feeling of hardening flesh is so shocking, it’s like a bucket of cold water and his brain stumbles to a halt. Although it does absolutely nothing to deter his body.

The Dark Passenger laughs delightedly in the back of his head, but Dexter is not amused.

He bites his lip in order to force himself out of the red fog that consumed him, but it does nothing more than send a painfully thrilling sensation through his organs.

This is the first time a reaction like this happened. He’s not sure how to deal with this.

The uncertainty and slight panic rising from within force all inappropriate thoughts and feelings out of his mind.

Slowly but surely his body follows and Dexter is more than relieved to be rid of it.

How horrible.

Forcing himself not to relapse, he slowly but surely strides toward the light. This time Angel notices the movement and squints at him. When he recognizes his face he waves him over with a grim set to his lips.

“Hey.” Angel greats unenthusiastically.

Looks like no one is up for lengthy debates today. Of course he can identify with that. Besides, it’s around six in the morning and the guy they were chasing turned out to be just another project of their resident killer.

“The lead is cold again,” he thinks with no small amount of giddiness. If he’s not careful a giggle might slip out and that would just be bad. Also, embarrassing. Instead of continuing this train of thought he focuses on the present situation.

“Hey. Find anything?”

Angel runs his palm over his mouth. “Nothing. Fucking nothing. Except for the obvious: that this hijo de puta is touched in the head.”

Instead of answering he nods and takes out his camera.

Frustrated people always regress to petty insults. Dexter feels a bit indignant on his friend’s behalf. He can’t blame Angel for not seeing the beauty of the craft, but he can’t force himself to participate in this mud throwing shebang. Not when this is the single most amazing thing he has ever seen. And just about the only one that evoked such a reaction from him.

The camera feels heavy in his hands and he takes in every detail he can through the lens. The clicking of the button has a calming effect when he takes photo upon photo to analyze at a later date. Soon he is lost in a frenzy, trying to get everything he possibly can while simultaneously appreciating every aspect of the hard work put into this project.

When he’s done Masuka nudges him into the direction of the bucket held in Tucci’s hand.

“So, what do you think?” He inquires with a stupid grin on his face.

Dexter experiences a moment of panic when he thinks his mouth will run away from him again and spill everything. Luckily, he catches himself in time. “Uh… well, the blood is definitely fresh. He was killed tonight. I’m guessing somewhere around midnight. There’s definitely enough blood for one person, but we will have to test it in the lab to see if it’s really Tucci’s.”

Whew, crisis averted.

Masuka nods along when Angel joins the conversation: “What do you think he’s trying to tell us?”

Oh, not this again.

For some reason Angel now thinks Dexter is a magic eight ball and has all the answers of the universe. Lovely.

“Uh, well, he likes flora? Maybe he’s a gardener.”

Masuka snorts. "Don't quit your day job, yeah?"

Dexter raises an eyebrow.

“You know what, it’s late. Or early. I didn’t get nearly enough sleep for this. We can always debate myths and monsters in the daylight.” He tells his two colleagues.

Angel waves him off. “Get some sleep, Dexter. We’re going to need you tomorrow.”

He salutes and makes a B-line for his car. Luckily he doesn’t run into anyone he knows and no one tries to talk to him.

He really needs to go home and rethink this whole experience in blissful solitude.

Good thing the roads are empty this time of night, because Dexter feels like his brain became mush sometime between waking up and leaving the crime scene.

In the end he arrives home safely at around seven o’clock. Given that he was woken in the middle of the night he can stay at home today. Thank god. He’s going to need the down time or he might just shank someone.

Just as he turns the corner leading to his front door he almost crashes into Rudy.

“Oh, hey, sorry.” He takes a quick step back before he gets a good look at the man.

Rudy is wearing a lab coat over his clothes and holds a briefcase and a shopping bag in one hand while trying to insert the key into the keyhole with the other. He turns to him, surprise spilling across his face.

“Dexter.”

“Leaving for work?” He asks and Rudy makes a disgusted face.

“Ugh, God, no. Just came from there actually. We had an emergency case and I had to pull an all-nighter.” He finally manages to unlock the door. “By the way, you’ve been a stranger.” He points accusingly at Dexter. “Come in, I have beer. I’m not taking a no for an answer.”

Great. Dexter already feels resigned. He has a strange feeling Rudy is the kind of person that needles and prods at you until you have no choice but to give in, sweeping into your life like hurricane.

“Uh, you sure about that? You did just say you pulled an all-nighter. I wouldn’t want to steal away your beauty sleep or anything.”

Rudy already disappeared into the dark apartment and Dexter couldn’t quite decide whether to follow or not. A light turns on and Rudy calls out: “don’t be ridiculous, one hour more won’t kill me.”

Alright then. He enters and closes the door behind him. Rudy is in the kitchen, putting away groceries. He turns his head to him and smiles. “Make yourself at home,” he gestures to the beer on the counter. Dexter sets his own camera bag down next to the door, then he strolls over and opens himself a bottle. He leans on the table and observes his neighbor. He hasn’t seen Rudy since their first meeting more than a month ago.

There is a hint of dark bags under his eyes and the red shirt is a bit crumpled. Other than that he looks almost too awake for someone who worked through the night. It’s almost impressive.

He drags his eyes across the room.

The apartment is the same as Dexter’s, but very sparsely furnished. A small couch with a TV and a laptop on the coffee table, a cupboard and a bookcase, a small kitchenette, a table with three chairs. It’s not much. Obviously this is just a temporary situation. He wonders for how long Rudy intends to stay.

“So. Care to share what you were doing at this God awful time of day. Or is that night?” Rudy rouses him from his musings. Dexter looks back to see him standing with an open beer in hand. He gestures to the couch and they relocate.

“Well, you wouldn’t believe, but I just got off work too.”

Rudy makes an interested noise. “Really? Do tell.” 

“Eh, I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to share the gruesome details with ah…civilians.” He tries.

Rudy bats at the air like he can exorcise human ethics with thought and determination alone and throws Dexter an impressive stink eye. “A doctor, remember? I know all about gruesome details. Also, my shift was boring as hell. I need something to lift my spirits. Don’t be selfish.” He wags a finger at him like the world’s most disappointed parent and Dexter feels genuine mirth clamber up his chest.

“Well, if you must know, it was the Ice Truck Killer case.” He reluctantly offers and Rudy nods.

“Ah. The newest celebrity.” He says, which perplexes him.

“You think he’s a celebrity?” He asks while fiddling with the label on the beer.

Rudy cocks his head. “Well, not necessarily, it’s more the fact that serial killers are the newest pop sensation in America nowadays. The term ‘celebrity’ certainly fits, don’t you think?”

Dexter thinks about the crowds of people waiting to see the newest thriller, thinks about books portraying killers and fan sites dedicated to them, he thinks about the wide eyed flock of sheep perversely ogling wild wolves – just waiting for slaughter, and slowly nods.   

“I guess. I don’t know, I just don’t understand that.” He confesses. 

“Well, what can you do, people are fascinated with the macabre.”  

“Like you?” He nudges.

Rudy grins.

“I suppose.” He allows. “But anyway, people just love them – the serial killers I mean. Or well, they think they love them. So long as the killers are on the other side of the TV screen. Find a man with a knife in your bedroom and suddenly all bets are off.” He adds with a snort and Dexter has to agree.

“I’m pretty sure they don’t actually want to meet a real serial killer. Although you never know –some people are dense enough.” He tells his neighbor.

“It’s ridiculous, it really is.” Rudy continues laughingly.

Dexter feels a bit out of place discussing a topic he is essentially a part of.

For a few moments they sit in an enjoyable silence, each lost to their own thoughts. 

“What about you? What was the emergency about?” Dexter’s voice penetrates the almost peaceful atmosphere.

“Doctor – patient confidentiality. Can’t talk about it to …ah, civilians.” He quips back and Dexter’s brow twitches in amusement.

“Are you sulking?”

Brian feigns offence. “I am a grown adult and I do not sulk, thank you very much. But tell you what, let’s make it an even exchange. What do you say? Tit for tat, even Steven and all that.”

“You just said your shift was boring, how is that in any way equal? I give you interesting, confidential, information and I get what? A boring graveyard shift?” He asks half incredulous half amused.

“Yeah.” He shrugs - the cheeky cretin.

Dexter shakes his head. “You would make a terrible business man.”

Rudy contemplates.

“… I’ll even add in a free compliment.”

They stare at each other.

“Uh…your hair looks nice.” He tries.

Dexter bursts out laughing.

“Yes, that, ahahah, that should do it. My ego is now fully satisfied.” He says and his neighbor joins in with his own giggling.

“Right? I’m amazing like that.” He boasts jokingly.

“You sure are buddy, you sure are.”

“Well don’t leave me in suspense, I’m dying to know about the newest hooker.”

Dexter looks at him. Was that a pun? Rudy looks so stupidly proud that a new wave of giggles erupts from him. How embarrassing.

Their guffaws fill the apartment and Dexter thinks maybe Rudy isn’t the only one sleep deprived. The stupid monotone jokes aren’t even funny. Perhaps there’s something in the air, he’s not sure. He doesn’t remember the last time he laughed like this.

“Also, sorry to bust your bubble, but there were no hookers to be found on this night.” He says when they finally calm down.

Rudy turns to him with a raised eyebrow. “I thought you said it was ITK case.”

“Yeah it was. It’s just that it was a male victim this time.” He explains.

“What? Seriously?”

“Mhmm.”

“That’s weird. I mean, why deviate from his MO?”

Dexter contemplates for a moment. Ah what the hell, the cat will be out of the bag soon enough.            

“Well, the victim was actually Tony Tucci.”

He watches as both of Rudy’s eyebrows shoot into his hairline. “But … wasn’t he the suspect?”

“Yeah, about that, LaGuerta called a press conference the moment we saw the footage of him in the hockey arena and refused to listen when some of us told her he was probably being held at gun point from an unseen angle.” He shrugs.

“Holy shit. Talk about a blunder.” Rudy rolls his eyes. “Then again, LaGuerta always struck me as an airhead. No offence.”

“None taken.” He assures. “And, well, you’re not wrong. A while back I told her carpe diem is Latin for complain in the daylight. She totally bought it.”

Rudy splutters and chokes on his beer. Dexter taps his back - amused.

“Complain in the daylight!” He manages in between coughing and laughter. “That’s great.” He wheezes.  

Dexter sniggers. “Yeah, and then she just goes: ‘Huh, interesting.’” Which prompts another bout of laughter.

“Oh dear god. That’s amazing.” He says as he wipes his eyes.

After a moment he continues, slightly more somberly. “In all seriousness though, I do hope you catch this guy soon.”

“Uh … yeah.” He finishes off his third beer and yawns. “So, what was it about your boring emergency shift?” He asks while shifting into a more comfortable position.

“Well, truthfully it was only an ‘emergency’ because we were understaffed. I wasn’t even supposed to be part of it. You see, it all started when Nick, my coworker who I honestly believe is a hypochondriac, decided today, well yesterday technically….”

Dexter lets Rudy’s voice wash over him. His eyes slip shut without his notice and suddenly he’s being lulled into the dark dreamland with the company of a soothing baritone.

He’s asleep before he knows it.

He continues with his inane chatter until soft snores penetrate the air. Then he lets his mask slither off his face like oil and considers his beloved little brother; the tousled hair, long eyelashes, slight bags under his eyes.

His poor, deprived sibling. He wonders how long it must have been since Dexter really let himself go. When was the last time he could openly joke about morbid topics without the fear of repercussions?

The mask he crafted was tailor made to attract his brother’s attention and Brian congratulates himself on a job well done. A nice, kind doctor with a dark sense of humor and jovial attitude.

His hand lingers near Dexter’s face and he has to restrain himself from moving any further. Reluctantly he vacates his spot on the couch and silently pads into his bedroom to fetch a spare pillow and a warm blanket.

When he returns, he spends a few minutes just looking at the way early sunlight caresses his baby brother’s face. The light hitting the structure of his cheekbones almost makes him seem ethereal. Like a character straight out of a Botticelli painting.

Somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind there is an urge bubbling to the surface, a compulsion to tie him up, to stuff him into an abandoned corner of the world and never let him leave his side. His Shadow purrs in agreement and he quickly discards the thought, lest it manifests in some more dangerous form. Then he slowly moves forwards and ever so carefully grabs him by the shoulders. Dexter twitches, but doesn’t wake up. Brian slowly shifts him into horizontal position with steady hands. His baby brother barely stirs.

He’s not sure if that means Dexter trusts him on instinctual level or he really is just that tired. He likes to believe it’s the first option anyway.  

Brian slowly lifts his sleeping head and tucks in the spare pillow, then he drapes the blanket over his brother’s sleeping figure.

In a rare moment of tenderness, he allows his fingers to slip through the unruly bangs. “Sweet dreams, little brother.” He whispers before quietly leaving the room to prepare for his own slumber.   

Chapter Text

It happens gradually.

The soft whisper of movement is what penetrates his subconscious first. Then the murmur of running water, the soft material rubbing against his cheek and the echo of silence sounding … off.

After a while of drifting somewhere in between worlds, the rich smell of coffee reaches him. For some reason it’s startling - in a very muted kind of way, like when the music in a movie changes and the only thing you can do is anticipate.

It doesn’t hit him until his Passenger, usually slinking in the very back of his mind, starts trying to wriggle free and take control, snarling.

This isn’t his bed.   

At once he is wide awake, adrenalin pumping through him. At that same moment he forces himself to go completely still, not moving a single muscle that would indicate his state of consciousness.

There is a sound of clinking ceramic and Dexter slowly flexes his muscles. He’s not bound, there is no rope or any other kind of constriction holding him. The smell of the place is familiar as well. The last thing he remembers is-

Last night’s memories crash into him like an unstoppable wave. He experiences them as if watching a grotesque carnival – all flashing lights and people moving on fast forward; the magnificence, the catharsis - and he forces himself not to twitch. The Ice Truck Killer, the body, Rudy.

Rudy … he fell asleep at his neighbor’s place.

There is a pillow under his head and a blanket covering him. Apparently he had slept through that as well. He dully marvels at the fact.  

What happened to him? What is happening to him?  

Yesterday he … felt.

He was filled to the brim with emotions. Confusion, curiosity, awe, trepidation, even lust.  

Today he feels … empty.

The thrill is gone, the soul bereft, the curtain fell and the applause sounded – the end. Time to go home.

He’s not sure if he wants an encore or not. He’s not even sure what exactly happened. The void inside him feels more present than ever, watching, looking. He can’t think.

A low cough stirs him from his musing.

Ah, his nefariously noisy neighbor. He blinks and slowly cranes his neck. Rudy’s back is to him, pouring … coffee apparently, into two mugs. How considerate of him. He hopes he doesn’t expect Dexter to stay for it.

He lifts himself of the couch and runs a hand through his messy hair.

Rudy’s movements still when the sound of movement registers. Then, “Good morning.”

“Uh. Morning.” He’s not sure what the protocol is for this. He never attended any kinds of slumber parties. Or passed out on someone’s couch for that matter.

“I made coffee.” Rudy informs him needlessly. “How do you take it?”

“Oh, no, that’s fine, I think I’ll just head home. Sorry for stealing your couch.” He says haltingly.

Rudy turns then, looking at him skeptically. “Don’t be silly. Just drink the coffee, you look like hell.”

Dexter’s eyebrows skip upwards. Wow. Rude.

His eyes flit to the clock on the wall that reads 11.24 and slowly makes his way to the kitchen table, resigned. He really just wants some peace and quiet. Is that too much to ask for?

The moment he sits down Rudy shoves a mug under his nose. It’s a hideous thing – the kind of florescent orange that makes fashion designers cringe in horror. He hopes the coffee at least tastes better. Briefly he wonders if Rudy intends to sit down, but well, it doesn’t matter. He tries to bury his nose into his coffee instead. It’s then that he spots the teeny, tiny print near the bottom of his mug. He lifts it up and reads: Nosey little fucker, aren’t you?  

A snort escapes him before sending Rudy an incredulous stare. “Nice mug.”

In response his neighbor takes a sip and Dexter gets a nice big middle finger printed at the bottom. Rudy’s eyes crinkle over the brim and his entire face sings with schadenfreude.

Amusement flits through him even when he rolls his eyes in expiration. He quickly gulps down some of the brewed beverage to avoid commenting on the childishness of the situation. Puns and cheesy jokes appear to be the norm in the world of Rudy Cooper.

He quietly calculates the shortest amount of time he is required to spend in his presence before it’s socially acceptable to run for the sanctuary of his apartment. He comes up with the approximation of ten minutes. Eight for the coffee, plus the time he will need for unnecessary pleasantries and goodbyes. He suppresses the urge to sigh.

“So I take it black is to your taste?” Rudy interrupts with another puzzling sentence.

“Uh … what?”

He gestures to Dexter’s mug. “You didn’t specify what kind of coffee you drink.”

“Oh. Yeah, black is fine.”

He lets the silence stretch while trying to consume half the cup in one go and only succeeds in burning his tongue.

“Not a morning person?”

Dexter looks at his neighbor and feels a distant eco of annoyance. What’s with the interrogation?

“I guess it depends on the day.”

“Hmm.”

They finish the rest of the coffee in silence and Dexter can’t decide if Rudy picked up on his discomfort and general exhaustion or he just doesn’t have anything more to say. He feels grateful in any case and a sliver of something like appreciation sneaks by his chest at the silent gesture.

Before he knows it, he’s standing up, preparing to leave.

“Well, I better go. Thanks for the …” He gestures in the air for the universal ‘everything’ and Rudy waves him off.

“No problem. But before you go I have a little request. I need an excuse for Saturday noon. Would you be opposed to going out for lunch somewhere?”

Dexter feels his eyebrows scrunching.

“An excuse for what?”

“I really don’t want to attend coworker’s baby shower.” Rudy cringes.

He lets himself think for a moment. It’s not like he has anything planed for the weekend. He thinks this must be one of those silent considerate transactions humans tend to do. Again he’s assaulted with the urge to rub his forehead.

“Ok.” How bad could it be?

“Great. Be ready at one o’clock.” Rudy grins. “And I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah. See you.”

He quickly grabs his bag and leaves. It feels a bit like fleeing.

Fleeing from what, he’s not sure.

He crosses the hallway in a few short steps and quickly unlocks the door.

The moment he steps into his apartment, he is immediately assaulted by an entirely new beast that sinks its claws into him and almost wishes for the quiet but distracting company of his neighbor.

Yesterday’s memories bombard his head space once again and he can’t help but think there was someone else moving under his skin, someone else reacting to the stimuli around him. Like he was moving through a dream – like nothing was quite as real as it presented itself to be. A liar slithering through his perception, making him question everything, making him doubt.

He feels a distant eco of the Dark Passenger - whispering to move, to hunt, to kill. He ignores it, sliding into the couch cushions. Staring into space he almost doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s not even sure what kind of expression his face is showcasing right now. A painted mask of wide eyed awe maybe, or perhaps a show of genuine exhaustion, tired lines spreading over his forehead like deep rivers running through a landscape.

His hand twitches and before he knows it, he’s reaching for the camera stored in his bag.

He has to see it again.

Just a look, to remind him of the feeling of last night, to maybe experience it anew. Just a taste.

He moves almost frantically now, fast, jerky movements working against him as he pulls and tugs at the buckles and straps of the bag. Finally, the camera is in his hand and as the screen starts to load, his breath starts to hitch with need.

He opens up the file and the photo that jumps to the screen takes his breath away all over again.

This, this is what he’s been waiting for. This feeling of strange excitement that makes his head spin and his toes curl. Goosebumps erupt along his back as he looks at the marvelous creation - much like he thinks Adam must have looked at God. With reverence in his eyes and adoration in his black soul.

He allows himself to let go of the restrain he tried to keep and all the weird, strange, unknown feelings swarm his body from the soles of his feet to the very top of his head. He feels.

The thumb twitches and the next picture comes up, laying itself bare for his inspection. Tony Tucci made into a masterpiece.

Dexter never had any interest in art of any kind, but this he could appreciate more than any cold statue, more than any work of literature, more than any painting ever made.

His insides suddenly flip or flinch or … something. It’s uncomfortably intense.

There is a need growing in him. He needs to –

His phone buzzes in his pocket and the feeling is lost.

Fuck.

He answers without looking at the name.

“Hello?”

“Dexter Morgan?”

“Ah, yes?”

“There has been a development with the disappearance of Cuban immigrants. A body washed up on shore and we would appreciate it if the fiancé, Yelena, could come to confirm the body.”

“Oh.” He lets out a gust of air. “Yes, of course. Thank you.”

“Hey, no problem.”

He flips the phone and tosses it next to him. Mournfully he glances at the camera - the photo still projected on the screen. Then he powers it down and goes to take a long shower. He’ll need some time before even attempting to call Rita. He can already imagine; the tears, the denial. She’ll need comfort. Dexter’s not sure he can give it. Just the thought of it is exhausting.

Half an hour later he’s on the phone again, biting off a tired sigh as his girlfriend asks for the third time: “Are you sure it’s him?”

“No. That’s why they need her to confirm. It’s a possibility that it’s Yelena’s fiancé based off general description, but they’re not 100% sure.”

He feels his voice slipping into monotone the longer they talk and forces himself to sound at least somewhat sorrowful.

“Oh, Dexter. She’s going to be crushed.” She laments. He really couldn’t care less. “Would you … would you mind coming with us? To the station I mean. I don’t want her to go alone.”

“Uh, yeah, of course.” He answers before he has the time to really comprehend the question. A second later he curses in his head and resigns himself to another boring social outing accompanied by stress and misery.

After that, he quickly assures her he’ll come pick her and Yelena up in three hours and ends the call.

For a moment he stares into space, no thoughts penetrating his mind and just letting himself breathe.

He sets himself to work, connecting the camera to the laptop and passes the time by uploading and dissecting photo files. The Ice Truck Killer photos are gripping in its intensity, but he manages to look past that and engage his brain to search for the meaning behind the act.

Because there is a meaning to this.

He’s just not sure what it is.

Obviously, this is not his preferred method. His friend is deviating from his norm. There is something completely separate about this kill - with so many differences it almost feels like a different killer altogether. But it’s not, so Dexter makes himself look at the anomalies. Like the fact that Tucci’s blood was left behind. The other victims were all drained, no blood in sight, which could only mean he is keeping the buckets of it.

A trophy. He collects it like Dexter collects the slides. So the fact that it was left behind means this kill is not meant as one for his collection. There is something more to this. The police department is stumped, but the message is not meant for them – it’s for him. He’s the one with the additional pieces to solve this puzzle. Toni Tucci was meant to convey something to him. But what?

The most glaring difference are the attached limbs. No neatly wrapped severed pieces of meat. Skinned, yes, but still attached to the body.

Well, except for the head.

He feels his brows furrow.

The head.

There is something about the head, he just has to figure out what. The obvious answer would be the flowers, but what does that mean? Is it something like a bouquet, like one brings flowers as a gift? A peace offering? A friendship request?

But if so, what is the point of doing all this work? Dexter already figured that out with the Barbie in his fridge. There must be something he’s missing. Like a code breaker missing some vital piece, unable to decode the encrypted message.

How frustrating.

....

Predictably, there is a lot of crying and helpless denial that Dexter has to suffer through when Rita and her friend end up at the police station’s morgue. He’s glad he doesn’t have to offer a shoulder to cry on and gladly lets his girlfriend handle the emotional baggage the other woman hauls with her while he waits a good distance away. He’s never been good at any of this. He just hopes Rita won’t complicate his life by demanding some kind of emotional support from him any time soon. He doesn’t have much to give there.

His stomach protests from the lack of sustenance and he cringes slightly in discomfort. He hates when his routine gets interrupted. Just the lack of breakfast makes him feel moody and off. At least he has Rudy to thank for his regular coffee intake. He allows his thoughts to wonder and decides he’s having pizza today.

He glances in Rita’s direction and his mood nosedives even further when he realizes they are nowhere near done with their weeping and moping. He contemplates pros and cons of leaving them to their misery while he steps out for a late lunch.

In the end his discomfort wins over the need to preserve his perfect boyfriend mask and he quickly slinks out of the building and to the nearest pizzeria.

The food is divine.

Almost an hour later he’s hoping up the stairs of the Miami metro, his mood lifted and hunger sated.

He turns the corner and sees his girlfriend looking around – probably searching for her elusive boyfriend.

He sees her frown when she spots him, Yelena still wrapped in her arms.

“Dexter? Where have you been?” She inquires, the slightest note of disapproval in her tight voice and he quickly plasters sympathetic grief onto his face.

“Sorry, just thought … here, I bought you some hot chocolate.” He presents the two cups like a peace offering.

Rita’s frown doesn’t quite disappear, but she does take the gift. Yelena looks like she won’t be drinking anything anytime soon, but takes the cup anyway, if only to occupy her hands. There is something broken in her eyes, some ghostly entity wrapped in sorrow skulking behind them.

Dexter thinks it’s kind of lovely.

Messy too, if the leaking eyes and a runny nose are any indication, but sort of nice non the less.

After a moment Rita clears her throat and the grip on her friend tightens, “I think we should get you home to the kids.”

Dexter takes the cue for what it is and leads the way to the parking lot.

Soon enough they stop in front of Yelena’s apartment and after a stilted goodbye he continues towards Rita’s house.

The drive is quiet, but Rita keeps making some sort of aborted sighing noises, like she wants to say something and Dexter isn’t quite sure … does he ask, does he wait for her to come out and say what’s on her mind?

In the end the decision is taken out of his hands when his phone beeps.

Grateful for a distraction he pulls it out of his pocket. Rita casts a glance in his direction and yes, he knows driving safety is compromised by texting, he knows the statistics, but he’s willing to risk it, if only to avoid Rita and her brooding for a second.

[Chinese or Italian?]

Reads in big bold letters and Dexter is confused for all of two seconds until his eyes catch the name on the top of the screen, and of course, of course it’s Rudy.

He must have gotten a hold of Dexter’s phone when he was asleep. He thinks he should feel violated. Instead there is annoyance battling amusement and well, it’s sort of Dexter’s fault too, isn’t it? For falling asleep where he shouldn’t.

He’ll be sure not to repeat that mistake again.

[I’m thinking Japanese]

He writes, just to be difficult and pockets his phone.

“Who was it?” Rita asks in a subdued tone.

“Ah, just a neighbor.” He answers and doesn’t elaborate. He’s not very impressed with her at the moment, as it feels like he’s putting more work into this relationship than it’s worth. It doesn’t happen often with her. She’s usually less … high maintenance. And he does like her, in his own way.

The lines around her eyes deepen, but she doesn’t comment on the topic further. Just as well. He doesn’t want to integrate Rudy into his life any more than he’s already encroached on it. Introducing him to Rita would end in them having dinners together and then Deb would get involved and before he could blink his persistent neighbor would be another thing to worry about, another mask to craft.

A good boyfriend, a brother, a co-worker. A friend would be one mask too many, he thinks.

He drops off his girlfriend and finally returns home.

[Raw seafood and bland rice?]

He finds when he opens up his phone.

[Not a fan?]  He types back, darkly amused. The phone beeps again before he even puts it down.

[I didn’t say that.]

[You didn’t have to. It was implied.]

[Well, no. You made your own assumptions.]

[Well based assumption, given your description.]

When there’s no immediate response, he finds himself gleefully pleased at his small victory. If Rudy ever insists on eating out again Dexter will know what to suggest in the future.

He makes himself comfortable behind his desk and checks his email. He thinks tomorrow will be a good night to catch the coyote. His passenger purrs – a rumbling eco that spreads through his bones.

[I don’t dislike Japanese cuisine.]

Comes the text message after the not insignificant pause.

[But you don’t love it either.]

[It’s an acquired taste.]

[That you have yet to acquire?]

He thinks that he should probably not antagonize his neighbor, but it’s the most fun he’s had today and well … he needs something to occupy him. Maybe Rudy will get so exasperated with him he’ll cancel their lunch. One can only hope.

[Perhaps.]

Dexter thinks this is the end of it, but half an hour later, while preparing the gear for Jorge Castillo, he’s proven wrong.

[I suppose the burden of picking out a restaurant is on you now.]

Dexter almost scowls at the phone. He types a response anyway.    

[There’s Benihana. It’s not far from here.]

[Here being … ?]

[My place.]

Then he thinks for a second and types -- corrects.

[Our place.]

There is a strange sort of pause following that text. Dexter’s not sure if it’s something he said or perhaps Rudy is busy and can’t answer –

[Sounds perfect.]

The answer … confuses him. There’s nothing strange about it per say, it’s just not exactly the response he expected; reluctant acceptance would perhaps fit better. Not that he’s complaining.

[One o’clock, right?]

[Yup.]

There are no more messages after that and his evening passes in a welcome monotone.

....

The workplace is overflowing with people. Anyone who could pull some strings to end up at the meeting discussing the murder case of one Tony Tucci did - just to satiate their curiosity. There are not enough chairs in the conference room, so people stand in groups next to the door, the wall and every nook and cranny in between.

LaGuerta takes the stage and runs them through the things they already know. As always, she has no insight whatsoever.

Then there are lab reports, Masuka, the leading geek trying to explain the electricity to a room full of cavemen. He is not surprised the majority of the people in the room have no idea what he’s talking about, scratching their heads in bewilderment.

Last but not least are the bright-eyed officers bringing forth ideas and suggestions. None of them are very good. Stuff like interview all the florists and check for witnesses and similar garbage that everyone knows will lead nowhere. Well, Dexter knows it anyway. Others like to pretend.

Perhaps he would be more involved in the investigation of his friend, if he wasn’t preoccupied by his own play date with Castillo tonight.

The Dark passenger howls all throughout the day and Dexter barely has attention for anything else.

Before he knows it, he’s home. Garbing the equipment, he checks if everything is in order.

Then he looks again, and Jorge Castillo has a needle in his neck, crumpling to the ground - just a sack of meet and bones.

The Wife surprises him.

He decides to surprise her back.

It’s a nice finish to his evening.

....

Next morning sees him trying to make up to Rita. It’s mostly working. She lost the ugly creases around her eyes in any case.

Then his breakfast gets interrupted by LAPD and he’s off.

To … his own crime scene apparently.

Walking in the old salvage yard, dirt and pebbles crunching under his feet, he wonders what he left behind. Some miniscule drop of blood? A hair? A finger print?

A whole body, it turns out.

Oops.

There is something like chagrin spreading through his teeth and into the smile that he offers to his co-workers.

He feels copper in his mouth and watches as Masuka sniffs around his prey.

The prey that somehow found its way back from the gloom of the blue ocean and came back to haunt Dear, Damaged Dexter.

“What are you doing here Valerie?” He wants to ask. Like she will sit right up and answer him.

His brain takes long minutes to figure out, quite obviously, that someone else brought her back here. It’s also almost immediately clear that it must have been his shadowy friend. Dexter wonders if he’s being punished. For what? Was he supposed to unravel the riddle he was given and somehow act on it?

All thought disappears from his mind when they find a witness in the trunk of a car.

The hole is in just the right position.

The boy saw.

Fuck.

....

Dexter is in a bad mood.

They are questioning the boy, Oscar, and the little miscreant is giving them a sketch description. There’s no way he can get to him undetected, so he does what he can. Drops the tools in the marina, stashes a knife with Valerie’s blood in a car. All in the space of a few hours.

Then suddenly it’s lunch time and its Saturday, so that means Rudy.

He scowls. He doesn’t have time for this.

Perhaps he should blow their meeting off, but he realizes there is nothing for him to do. Not at the station or anywhere else. He prepared as best as he could. Moping around won’t help him and if he’s getting imprisoned, he might as well enjoy his meal.

So he goes out and drives to the restaurant. He arrives just in time to see his neighbor exit his own car and waves.

They exchange a quick greeting and find a table. Rudy prattles on about his day, but Dexter can barely concentrate. They order – Dexter a plate of sushi, that Rudy turns his nose at, and the doctor gets miso and teriyaki.

“So, want to tell me what’s got you all worked up?” Rudy asks when they get their dishes.

“What makes you think I’m worked up?” He asks, even though it’s a stupid question. Everyone and their mother can see his thoughts are flying in every direction. He can’t focus. Rudy must think so too, since instead of answering, he glares at Dexter, demanding to cut the shit - as Deb would say.

He lets out a long exhale and –

“We found this body yesterday. Some woman.” He begins, slowly, trying to reorganize his thoughts and put them into words. “Apparently her husband dealt with illegal immigrants and right now he’s our top suspect.”

He looks up to see Rudy watching him. There’s no expression on his face but his eyes hold an intensity that tells Dexter that the only thing he is concentrating on right now is him. It’s … almost nice. Usually it’s always him dealing with other people’s problems. With Deb, with Rita, Angel.

He explains about the Coyote, how he preyed upon the immigrants and took them hostage, dragged them away from their families and awaited payment. He spins the tail of washed up bodies that were not worth enough to be kept alive. How he and his loyal wife worked together, two peas in a pod, a twisted love spanning through the years of darkness and sick glee. The words flow without interruption and he finds himself immersed in his own story.

Dexter talks about the salvage yard, how they found Valerie Castillo dead in an abandoned trailer, whole apart from her cut neck, life force sucked away by the hands of her killer – presumably her husband. He tells him about the unusual phenomenon of the unlocked door holding the caged humans and the unusual disappearance of the husband.

His stream of words putters to a stop and he takes a glance at his neighbor. The expression is one of mild interest and obvious focus. His brown eyes are piercing – a terrifying intensity swirling somewhere in their depths. Then Rudy cocks his head, just slightly, like a hungry sort of bird, watching something wriggling.

“Okay. So what’s the problem? They had a fight, the husband killed the wife, the immigrants went free … I don’t see what you’re worried about.”

Dexter contemplates for a moment, but how does he tell Rudy that they aren’t the problem. How does he phrase this to make sense to a normal, law abiding citizen?

“Well, the thing is … we found a boy. In the trunk of a car. He saw what happened through a hole and he’s our only witness right now that could tell us for sure who killed Valerie.”

The sentence comes out awkward and slow and he stares at the table wishing he stayed quiet. For some time, there is only background noise of conversation and clattering of dishes. Then Rudy exhales and Dexter looks back at him.

There’s something in Rudy’s face – some sort of seriousness that wasn’t there before and his eyes boring into Dexter’s own.

“Listen,” he begins. “Not to be an asshole but, you do know that eyewitness testimonies are basically worthless, right?”

Surprise flashes through him, bright and intense. He opens his mouth to say … something, when Rudy holds up his hand and Dexter’s jaws click back almost painfully.

“No, no. Just, listen. I know you want this case wrapped up quickly and neatly. I know you want this boy to be a solution – a clue to the killer’s whereabouts. But the unfortunate fact is, humans can’t remember what they saw literally five minutes ago.” He lets out a slight sigh and looks away, staring into the distance.

“There are studies out there that prove just how unreliable human memory is. Not to mention, the boy was in that trunk for god knows how long, hungry and dehydrated. I don’t think he could have recognized the attacker in the best of circumstances, much less stuffed inside a car in the middle of the night.” He lets the words sink in and continues.

“I know you’re worried, but there are things you just need to accept. There is very little possibility you are ever going to catch this killer if the only concrete thing you have is a witness testimony that is almost certainly completely compromised.” He finishes and looks at Dexter, almost daring him to oppose him.

They stare at each other and Dexter feels … well, something. His thoughts are quiet for the first time since the crime scene and his head feels oddly weightless, because Rudy is right.

It’s not that there suddenly isn’t a cause for concern, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel now and –

Some kind of strange contentment blankets the space between them, mixes itself with something similar to understanding and Dexter feels … relieved.

Something soft settles in his heart.

“Yeah, I … guess you’re right.” He says and there must have been something in his eyes or his voice because Rudy’s whole face erupts in a smile and Dexter can’t, literally cannot stop himself from smiling back.

It strikes him later, that this must have been one of the only times he smiled, really, genuinely smiled at another person.

He wonders then, how that kind of a thing looked like on his face.

He thinks he would like to see once.

 ....

Later, when he’s already in his bed his phone beeps.

[Care for a repeat performance?]

[I wouldn’t mind Italian.]

I need.

Desperately, achingly.

To keep close, to share and take and devour.

It’s almost painful.

This love.

The city streets are milling with people, ants scurrying around, and he strolls right along with them, an unknown predator taking in sights and sounds of a busy, sunny afternoon.

He wears glasses (the correctional kind, not the tinted shades seen in bad spy movies) and a beany. Such an innocuous disguise that makes it so much easier to blend in, to meander unnoticed among the sheep. It fills him with a malicious, secretive joy; to be a god among mortals, to be superior and know it. It’s a macabre dance that he never gets tired of.

Also, whoever invented headphones must have been a genius. Such handy devices that in and of themselves discourage conversation while being perfectly sociably acceptable. An ideal human repellant.

Brian lets the chatter wash over him like the buzzing of insects.

He spent all morning and a good chunk of the afternoon scouting for hotels. More specifically, hotels with no cameras or other surveillance measures. The size of the rooms. A little Easter egg with 103 number. All of it needed to be perfect.

Standing in the small room, just about the size of a shipping container, he would say he had found the perfect place.

Marina View hotel.

The name seems appropriate somehow. It gnaws at his thoughts, tiny little bites that accumulate over time and in his mind’s eye he sees Dexter sailing on his little boat – the slice of life, and thinks: I’m watching. 

A view indeed.

There is a buzz and he quickly pulls up his phone. Baby brother of course.

[The kid painted us a picture.]

Ah, yes. The little Oscar that’s been such a thorn in Dexter’s side. For a moment he marvels at the ability of someone with so little importance in the world to be able to be such an inconvenience. On the other hand, he brought his distressed brother running straight into Brian’s arms.

He shivers in exhilaration. He didn’t expect his little stunt to bear such sweet tasting fruits. Every time he gets a text from his brother it is another reminder of his triumph and he relishes in it, the victorious feeling making his toes curl in its intensity.

His Shadow cackles at their own genius and whispers: A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

He feels drunk on success.

[And?]

The phone buzzes again and he opens the file attached sent to him. It’s a photo of a sketch that looks like … Jesus? An outright laugh escapes him at that little gem.

[Hallelujah.] He replies and tucks the bookmark between pages 103 and 104 of the Bible.

He hasn’t had so much fun in years.

Another look at the room, then he turns around and leaves. This place will be useful in a few weeks and by then the personnel here will already have forgotten his face and he will be able to continue his little game uninterrupted. He wonders how the LAPD is progressing with his case. Dexter didn’t broach the topic again, but Brian can’t be too angry at his current lack of interest. He has been rather preoccupied with his own murder after all.

Running around, planting fake evidence, erasing clues. Little brother has been busy. Brian thinks it’s an important lesson he’s bestowing on him. After all, what better way to teach him about improvisation? Of course Dexter doesn’t know the exercise was executed in a controlled environment, doesn’t know Brian went through the trouble of making doubly sure it wouldn’t tie back to his brother. Better to prepare him now than to have him floundering later, if things get dicey.    

As he strolls back toward his car, he thinks he needs to remind his brother where his interest should lie, now that the little kerfuffle has blown over. A new present perhaps. But what kind?

On the way home he thinks about all the lovely horror that he can present to Dexter next. Another clue, another breadcrumb leading towards a house made of sweets. A roof dipped in chocolate and candy filled walls and nearby a river overflowing with sweetened milk. Their own wonderland and Dexter might as well be Alice – always late to the party, always in search of a road.

Of course, before all that, he needs to find a way to alienate his current family first. Or what passes as a family in Dexter’s world. That means the Morgans and maybe, possibly, that girlfriend of his.

Brian scowls. He’s not sure what to think of the timid blond and her brood that his little brother has taken under his wing. Another useless bump in the road. It’s not that he thinks they are a problem, so much as they are an unnecessary distraction, holding his brother’s attention when he should be concentrating on more important things.

Like me.

His brain takes a detour and contemplates the images of families and masks and fake sisters while his Shadow growls in the background and soon enough, a tentative idea takes hold.

Then he’s home, sitting at his desk with his computer running, searching for a father he barely remembers.

When he finds nothing after hours of scouring the internet, he is both frustrated and not surprised in the least.

It’s hard to follow a lead when all you have is half forgotten memories and maybe a name. Joe, he thinks. He knows he was in prison for a time, remembers the tattoo on his elbow, remembers he would always bring gifts after his long absences; a toy train, a chocolate bar, a strange looking stuffed animal.

He wonders now, how much of that was stolen. A drug addict doesn’t have an abundance of funds after all.  

He needs to find their father and lead Dexter to him. To show him there was another family before this one. Then, he can tell him all about Harry Morgan and how he cheated their mother out of a life. How he dragged her into this world of blood and horror, pushed her into a screaming, writhing mess of shadows and them along with her.

Hopefully Dexter will, after finding Joe, explore on his own - looking for his mother and finding Harry’s dirty fingerprints all over her (and their) demise.

That day he falls asleep with family in mind – the lost and the found and the alienated.

....

Work is a kind of necessity in his life that Brian takes to with grim determination.

As he reassures the mother and offers encouragements and compliments to the daughter to stem their tears and yammering, he thinks that maybe he should have picked a different profession. Perhaps he could have worked in a lab somewhere. Or in a morgue. Maybe as an undertaker. No pesky human interactions there. Of course, those wouldn’t be nearly as prestigious. Also, Brian thinks he looks fancy as hell in a doctor’s lab coat.

“There, all done.” He smiles at the girl who lost her hand due to her own stupidity.

The girl stares at the manufactured palm, uncomprehending. She has a face of someone who keeps waiting to blink and wake up, while holding the terror at bay as best as she can. There is a dull panic of oh god my hand is gone and the belated horror of it’s never going to be okay. Brian thinks it’s funny.  

“But – but it doesn’t look like my hand. How will I grab anything with this?” She says dully and her mother lets out a sharp exhale – a response to her offspring’s suffrage.

Brian turns his back to them to hide his contempt and washes his hands at the sink.

Stupid cow, this isn’t a sci-fi movie.

“And – and it’s so noticeable, everyone will see and-”

He thinks he should text Dexter after this. Maybe grab a lunch if he’s free. After work he’ll scour the local archives for any mention of Laura Moser or Joe. There must be something. He could, in theory, hack police database, but he’s not sure how well that would turn out in practice. Brian is good with computers and electronics, but is he good enough?

Perhaps as a last resort.

He turns back around with a pinched smile and caters to human stupidity.

....

[Up for a quick lunch?]

[Sure. There’s a burger place nearby. One o’clock?]

[Sounds great.]

[I’ll send you the address.]

....

Brian arrives at the place ten minutes late and punishingly bites his cheek. He hates to keep his brother waiting.

The bell jingles as he pushes through the door and scans the place for the unmistakable reddish fluff of hair. The moment he catches a glimpse of his companion something in him seizes. It’s a strange feeling. He pushes past it and grins at the wave Dexter sends his way.

“Thought you diched me for a second.” His brother comments indifferently and Brian fakes a wounded look.

“You know I would never. It’s the patients, they didn’t want to let me go.” He offers as an explanation and an apology of sorts. Dexter looks him over and slowly nods.

“Busy day?” He asks.  

“You wouldn’t believe the shit I have to put up with.” Brian tells him seriously.

The corner of Dexter’s mouth twitches upwards, barely for a second, but it feels like lightning flashed through his bones and he barely shuts down a shudder. He wonders at the intense sensation his sibling can so easily inspire in him.  

They are interrupted by a pretty waitress and they quickly place their orders.

“I thought you went into the business because you liked people, or at least liked helping them.” His brother points out.

“I went for the people, stayed for the paycheck.” He jokes and Dexter cringes exaggeratingly.

“Ouch. That bad huh?”

Brian sigs and describes the passive mother and her inability to keep her kid in check, the spoilt daughter and her clumsy attempts at trying to appear cool - losing a hand in the process and their inability to accept the consequences of their actions. Dexter nods and hums, trying to look sympathetic and instead only achieves face-planting straight into amused indifference. Brian loves him for it.

“Then they have the gall to tell me the hand doesn’t look like a real hand. I mean, what did they expect? Did they think I could regrow it or something?”

“You never know. Maybe with enough love and patience.” There’s amusement dancing in his hazel eyes and Brian playfully scowls.

“Out of stock, sorry.”

“Did they try prayer groups?”

“They will now. Maybe visit a shaman too.”

“Why do we even have doctors?”

“I wonder every day.” He says and rolls his eyes at his sibling. “What about you? Anything new in your corner of the world?”

For a moment Dexter stops chewing on a french-fry and Brian has a feeling he stumbled upon something interesting.

“Smooth topic change there.” He tries to stall.   

“Oh please, you had your dig at my expense. Now spill. I can tell something went pear shaped.”

Dexter looks almost, dare he say, startled for a moment, before his face settles into resignation.

“Rita’s husband just got out of prison.” 

Silence nestles between them while he tries to make sense of the words that came from Dexter’s mouth.

“Okay. I have questions.” He declares after some time of looking into his brother’s eyes. Dexter looks half relieved half chagrined, but he bares it with good grace.

“Shoot.”

“So, first of all, what do you mean husband? I thought she was your girlfriend.”

“She is. Paul never signed the divorce papers, so technically…” He shrugs.

“Ah. And I’m guessing he came back, strutting like the worlds prettiest peacock.”

“There was some weight thrown around.” He admits and Brian can feel the frown settling on his face. He decides to ask a more meaningful question.

“What was he in prison for?”

“Uh … Drugs, battery, rape. Something like that.” Brian takes a sip of his drink to give himself a moment of thought. He’s not going to insult Dexter by offering help - he knows better than anyone that his brother is far from helpless. And yet, there is some sort of protectiveness surging, rattling his bones, his Shadow standing at attention, up and ready for slaughter.

“Hmm.” He lets himself hesitate for a moment, then: “Is he a problem?” He asks seriously and Dexter seems to hesitate himself before shaking his head. “Only in the sense of bribing and buttering up the kids with gifts. For now, he seems content with the supervised visitations.”

He lets the truth settle in his mid; Paul is an inconvenience at best. It helps to wrangle his hissing Shadow into submission.

“Guess there’s nothing to it. You’ll just have to suffer his presence in the household now. You’ll get used to it in time, just don’t’ let him get under your skin and it’ll be fine.” He shrugs. Dexter gets a pinched look on his face when he answers, skeptically. “I guess.”

They enjoy their food in silence for a while before Brian shapes the lines of his face to form conspiratorial mischief. “And if he tries anything, you can bring the plastic bags and I’ll get the shovel.”

Glee explodes over Dexter’s face and Brian watches in amusement as his sibling tries to cover up an aborted sort of giggle.

“Are you suggesting I make use of your expertise as a surgeon?” He asks, laughter in his eyes.

“I’ve seen my fair share of severed body parts is all I’m saying.” He says, letting his mirth shine through. Then after a moment he adds: “Or just contact the police. Might be a good option to consider. Subpar option in my opinion, but an option non the less.”

He basks in the sound of laughter spilling from Dexter’s mouth.

....

After several days and many hours of relentless searching he finally manages to get a lead on his elusive father.

Joe Driscoll.

The overwhelming feeling of success swims in his head and plans are spiraling in all directions when he gleefully settles into his couch, turning on the television. He pours himself a celebratory glass of red wine and switches programs in search for a good film. Almost barreling right past a news network, he feels his brows furrow when he catches a glimpse of his moniker at the bottom of the screen and ups the volume.

“-ernoon, a man suspected of moonlighting as the notorious murderer known as The Ice Truck Killer has been caught and brought in for questioning. The LAPD has released the identity of the man, Neal Perry, but not much more is known about him at the moment. Here is the official statement from captain Matthews.”

Brian stares at the screen in disbelief as a picture of a slimy, greasy looking man shows up in the corner. He briefly thinks the guy looks like a rodent. Then something cold starts bubbling in his stomach and he doesn’t think anymore. The feeling spreads like cancer toward his neck and up his throat and he clenches his teeth so it doesn’t escape out of his mouth. It’s like a horrific itch that he can’t scratch, boiling and searing. It’s eating him, painfully devouring his flesh from the inside.

He fights to keep a horrible snarl off his face.

He doesn’t succeed.

His face ripples and contorts until his clenched teeth are almost entirely visible, bulging eyes transforming his face into a monstrous visage.

Red is creeping at the edges of his vision and he sits very, very still, not allowing himself to move lest he explodes in a rage that will mark the end of his careful planning.

He feels his hands shaking.

He is furious.

How dare they.

HOW DARE THEY.       

His artwork, his achievements, his hard work – attributed to some, some nobody. He will kill them for this travesty. They will suffer and they will beg for forgiveness while he scrapes out their fucking brains out with a spoon until they are just blabbing sacks of meat and bones as their family watches-

He lets his eyes fall shut and in less than a second the rage disappears like it was never there. He lets his muscles relax and leans back into the couch.        

After a moment he looks back at the TV, a promise of something terrible lurking in his eyes.

He promised Dexter a present. It just so happens that this one is going to be a bit more personal. He’s not stupid enough to go directly after the police officers, that will have to wait, but the news reporter? That he can do. He makes sure he memorizes her features and writes down her name on a piece of paper lying around.

Of course, he muses, he could just let the sleeping dogs lie. He has better things to do with his time after all. But then again, it’s not like he’s short on time. Of course he would like to speed things up and have his brother beside him, basking in his presence, but he does that anyway on regular bases and it’s satisfying enough that he doesn’t feel so very bereft. It won’t complicate things that much, if he indulges a bit.

So he throws himself into research, who she is, what she does, the likes. Tomorrow, he’ll have to finish work early, if he wants to catch her leaving her office and follow her home. He quickly calculates the amount of work he’ll have to do in the required time frame and curses. He’ll have to wake up early.

Brian busies himself with preparations before quickly falling into bed, his head full of plans and ideas just waiting to be implemented.

He falls asleep with the image of Dexter’s bloody hand holding on to his.

....

The next day is a flurry of activity. He arrives at the hospital whooping three hours early and gets to work. Reviewing patient files, making treatment plans, treating patients, sculpting body parts and finally, signing off. He’s pleased to note he’s slightly ahead of schedule, so he stops for a quick bite. Then he parks in front of the news network office and settles down for a long wait.

His phone buzzes and he frowns.

[Up for a drink?] He reads.

It’s from Dexter, which is both exhilarating and … puzzling. Usually Brian is the one that always instigates the conversation between them. The only other time that his brother texted him first was to tell him about the police sketch. His brother was excited that time. Is that what’s happening? Poor Dexter, feeling good and not knowing what to do with it.

But why would he –

Oh.

Of course. The Ice Truck Killer was caught.

Feeling smug about that, brother dear? He thinks viciously. His Shadow hisses – insulted.

Then the feeling slips out of his fingers like water and he sighs. He can never hold on to any emotion for very long. And besides, how could he fault his baby brother for wanting to gloat a bit? It will be all the sweeter when he punishes them for it.

[I’m a bit tied up right now. Nine o’clock, my place?]

[OK.]    

He wonders what Dexter will do, now that his … friend was captured. Brian feels himself bristle when he thinks about his brother paying unnecessary attention to this rat.

Distracting himself from the anger simmering under the surface, he fantasizes about wrapping his hands around Neil Perry’s throat and squeezing until his eyes pop out of his skull.

His musing is interrupted by the short blond walking out of the building and his eyes follow her all the way to her vehicle.

Hello, darling.

He shakes himself into alertness and starts up his car. 

Tailing someone really isn’t as easy as it sounds and most of his attention is on the white Toyota a few cars in front of him. A few times he almost loses her, but luck seems to be on his side today and he follows her to the neat residential area. He carefully parks on the other side of the road, a few spaces behind. He quickly jots down the street and house number and turns the car around.

He’ll have to come back soon and stake out all the ins and outs of the place, check for alarm systems. She most certainly lives alone, but he doesn’t want any unnecessary surprises. A sigh threatens to escape him. This is why he picks up hookers. They are so much easier.

No pun intended. His Shadow snickers.

If he had to make a comparison, it would be something like cooking for yourself versus ordering take out. While cooking stuff yourself is rewarding, in its own way, it’s also time consuming and draining. Why waste time cooking when you can just make a call and the food is brought directly to your door.

Oh well, it’s a special occasion. He doesn’t mind much.

He parks the car and checks his watch. Half past seven. Earlier than he thought.

As he ascends the staircase leading to his apartment he sends a quick text.

[Finished sooner than I thought. Home now.]

Brian frowns skeptically when not even five minutes later there is a knock on the door.

That couldn’t be Dexter, could it? His antisocial, awkward little brother. The same brother who avoids company like it carries bubonic plague. He shuts of his laptop and sweeps his gaze around the room to make sure nothing incriminating is laying around. Then he walks over and opens the door.

He stares at hazel eyes.

“Dexter?” He ventures. “I … honestly didn’t expect you to show up before nine.”

His brother, instead of fidgeting, becomes almost unnaturally still under his scrutiny.

“Oh. Sorry. I can come back later if you’re busy.” He says, voice quiet, but clear. Brian doesn’t know what to make of this behavior. He can almost see the puzzled expression settling onto his own face.

“No, no. I’m not doing anything. Get inside.” He says and ushers him into the apartment. “You’ve surprised me, that’s all.” He says as he leads Dexter to the kitchen table. He grabs the beers from the fridge and takes the seat next to his brother.

He waits until they both have their bottles opened. “So, what the hell happened?”  

Dexter looks up at him and his eyes are strangely intense. He doesn’t speak, but Brian waits and doesn’t press him.

“It’s … I’m sure you heard about the Ice Truck Killer.” Brian is not sure if that is supposed to be a question, but it comes out flat and dry, just slightly above a whisper. Almost like he’s talking to himself instead of Rudy. He’s not sure what is going on but nods anyway.

“I’ve heard the news.” Is all he offers on the matter. Dexter’s jaw muscle twitches violently and he looks away from Brian to the bottle in his hands.

“When they first brought him in, I thought that there’s no way this was it. The guy lives in a trailer for fuck’s sake. Then the evidence kept piling up and I don’t know. I still wasn’t convinced, but today LaGuerta had an interview with him.”

When no other information seems to be forthcoming he nudges him a bit: “And?”

Dexter glances at him, fast as a snake. “… He’s smarter than he looks.”

The silence drapes itself around their shoulders and Brian lets his mind whirr and digest.

It strikes him like a lightning bolt.

He’s not talking to Dexter.

Or at least, he’s not talking to the mask his brother hides behind.

No wonder his actions felt so off.

He makes sure his expression remains neutral when he drags his eyes over to his sibling and takes in the sight of the monster sitting at his table. He catalogues every inconsistency he can find, takes note of his posture, his movements, the blank look in his eyes.

It’s lovely.

He feels his insides grow warm with affection.

This, this is what his brother is. This is what he should look like, what he should act like.

It makes goosebumps rise along his back.

When he finally speaks, his voice comes out strangely tender. Dexter looks about as startled as Brian feels. “You don’t want this Neil Parry to be the Ice Truck Killer.” He says, cuts right into the heart of the matter and lets the truth of that statement settle over them both.

Brian expected his brother to gloat, to celebrate and jeer. This … somberness is a surprise. He feels lightheaded.

“It’s not that I don’t want … more like it just doesn’t seem …” His brother cuts himself off.

“Right?” Brian pushes and Dexter jerkily nods.

There’s something pushing along his bones. A soft, gentle thing with just a hint of a bite. It makes Brian want to trace the lines of Dexter’s face until it loses the frowns and the wrinkles on his brow smooth out. He wants to peel the skin off of his face and take a look at the cogs beneath.

Slowly, he lifts his hand and makes sure to telegraph his movements. He doesn’t want to startle the dark figure residing behind Dexter’s eyes. He lays it over Dexter’s unoccupied one and gently squeezes. 

Something in his chest flutters like butterfly’s wings.

His brother eyes their clasped hands with morbid fascination - like it’s some abomination that crawled out of a lab. Still, he doesn’t pull away and Brian almost preens.

“Tell me about the Ice Truck Killer.” He says to distract both of them. “Not Neil Perry; tell me what the killer is like.”

“Uh …” For the first time this evening Dexter looks a bit like the mask he wears – uncertain, slightly uncomfortable. “Clean, I guess. Meticulous.”

“Hmm.” He lets the moment stretch a bit. “What about Neil Perry?”

His sibling scoffs. “You should have seen his place. It’s disgusting. He lives in a trailer full of stuffed animals.”

“Taxidermy?”

“Among other junk.”

“I suppose, while that does sound disturbing, it’s definitely not meticulous.” He frowns.

“Yeah, exactly.” His brother looks like he is seconds away from an eye role.

“You said he lives in a trailer?”

“Yes.”

“Where does he kill his victims?” He asks and Dexter frowns.

“ … I mean, we presume he kills them in an ice truck. Easy to transport. He definitely didn’t kill them anywhere near his place.”

“So where is the ice truck?”

“That … is a good question.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes – his baby brother thinking about the new revelation and Brian subtly brushing the pad of his thumb over Dexter’s knuckles. The pleasure he gets from that is almost perverse. His Shadow trills.

“I heard on the news they found a woman in a hotel room.” He offers.

“Yes…” Brian can almost hear Dexter’s brain whirring away. “That. It makes no sense.”

“If anything, you should have found her in an ice truck.” It takes some effort not to let his amusement show.

“And she was injured. Beaten and cut up. None of the other victims were.”

“What else did you find?”

“Um. There were photos. Of the bodies. That we didn’t release to the press. We presume he took them after he arranged the body parts. Pretty strong evidence.”

Brian stills.

That … is not possible. He was the only living person at those crime scenes and even if Perry happened to stumble upon one of them between the time he delivered them and the time the police found them, he would never be able to get to all of them. Not unless he followed Brian and he most certainly did not. To anyone else, this would be damning evidence. To him, it’s a different kind of conundrum.

“Hmm. That’s …” He lets himself trail off.

He lets himself think and Dexter thankfully doesn’t interrupt.

Finally, an idea strikes. “You said he was smart?” He asks and Dexter nods. His brother is watching him now, attentive, like Brian came up with a solution to all his problems and offered him the key to eternal paradise. Brian likes the feeling.

“Smart enough to hack police database?” He offers.

He finds it funny that some time ago he himself entertained the possibility of doing just that.

He watches as hazel eyes ignite, a spark of flame becoming an inferno. Dexter’s eyes glitter in delight and Brian lets a smirk unravel on his own face.

“I’m not saying Neil Perry is not the Ice Truck Killer, but there are a lot of little inconsistencies and dubious happenings. I think you have a right to be concerned. If he really is just an attention seeker, the real killer will be less than impressed when he finds out someone else is reaping his rewards.” He shrugs. “At this point it could go either way.”

Dexter shakes his head. “No, no, this is good. Before, it felt like there’s 90% chance he is the killer. Now it feels more like 20%. And even people who are totally convinced … I should be able to make them at least consider other possibilities.”

The mask settles neatly over Dexter’s face again.

Brian hates it.

He comforts himself by squeezing Dexter’s hand again before slowly letting go.

After that they settle back into their routine.

They talk about lighter topics - bickering and griping. It doesn’t feel nearly as good as it should have and it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

They finish the beer and Dexter looks almost reluctant to leave. Any other day Brian would have counted that as a victory. Today, after he experienced what he could have had instead, it just feels empty.

A trophy made of plastic.

In his mind, his plans shuffle and squirm.

He doesn’t want to wait any longer.

Chapter Text

He’s still out there.

Prowling the streets, his eyes roaming, looking, searching for a new girl. Dexter imagines a dark figure gliding down a busy street, hands in pockets, head down, hidden beneath a hood. He imagines him moving like a ghost through town, dead and invisible. 

But his eyes.

His eyes are alive.

He paints them in his head, electric blue at first, like the ice that is his loving signature, soon they change color to a poisonous green, then a rusty brown. Yet, no matter what color or shade he gives them, they all hold a sort of mischief in them. A darkness and a glee and something else.

The longer he stares, with his mind’s eye, at the strange, half lidded, smiling eyes, the more at peace he feels. 

His imagination helps him along and he’s on his boat now, deep darkness of the night surrounding everything. The playful stranger watches him and Dexter watches back. He’s not pretending anymore, the mask is off and he stares with dead eyes at a new world. Realization of just how freeing this feels is swimming somewhere in his peripheral where he can’t reach just yet. He imagines taking a step forwards, slow as to not scare his companion. His playmate laughs at him – a warm, loving, mocking sound and he-

“The fuck you daydreaming about, Morgan?” Jerks him violently out of his headspace. Noise of the office rushes back like a tide. He swivels in his chair and comes face to face with Doakes.

Great.

“Sorry. I’m waiting for lab results so … there’s nothing to do right now.” He explains, half-heartedly defending himself.

The officer leans towards him, towers over him in what Dexter presumes to be an effective scare tactic. Pity Dexter feels nothing but mild annoyance, looking up at the good sergeant. Dexter’s lack of reaction seems to fire him up even more and a vein pulses beneath his dark eye. “Well find something useful to do.” He snarls and marches away with a half mumbled, “Fucking creep.”

Gee, thanks.

Dexter purses his lips and stares at his muscular back as he struts away, cutting through the office space like a well sharpened knife cuts through flesh.   

He doesn’t fault Doakes for finding him strange. In fact, he might even respect him for it. Or he would, if he wasn’t such a pain in his behind. As it is, they constantly wrestle and butt heads in a fight of wits, even if it seems more or less one-sided to the rest of the world. He doubts his charms would work on him like they do on the rest of society and so their power dynamics shift and change on a daily basis. Most of the time in Dexter’s favor, but not always – Doakes can be crafty like that.

The other cops at the station seem almost like dumb cattle compared to James’ keen, wolf-like senses. Dexter wonders if the sergeant is wired in the way only monsters can understand. He must be. How else would he recognize Dexter for what he is?

They share a common ground there, however reluctantly. They are both hunters, predators, always on the prowl, always trying to assert dominance inside the boundaries of their own worlds and in their own ways. But no matter the common ground, they are a different species entirely. Where the dear Sargent is a wolf, a bear, a guard dog, Dexter is a cold blooded type of critter. A snake, a lizard, a spider. Perhaps that’s why it’s so hard for them to cohabitate.

A curious thought shoots through his head.

What type of animal is Rudy?

He imagines his neighbor – his cunning intellect, the goofy jokes, his calculating demeanor and superior advice – and thinks of a small mackerel tabby cat batting his little paws at the dangerous snake, curious and completely unafraid, but still cautious, at attention looking for any wrong movement.

Dexter finds, much to his surprise, that he likes Rudy. Likes his aloof demeanor, likes his awful jokes, his dark humor, his ability to present a new outlook. With Rudy, Dexter doesn’t feel like an outsider looking in.

He profited a lot by hanging out with him.

Dexter thinks it might be worth it to keep him around. For as long as that will last anyway.

There’s a reason he doesn’t have friends.

....

Neil Perry is a scoundrel and Dexter has every intention of tearing apart his kingdom piece by piece in a full scale rebellion, executed in response to the false king’s unjust rise to power.   

Maria LaGuerta exits her office and he immediately stands at attention. Hurriedly he gets up and starts to weave between the cluttered office tables, like a shark swimming between the reefs, trying to reach his prey before she slips off somewhere else. He has a plan in mind and who better to help him execute it than the little dummy so very infatuated with him. She will be his general in this game of deception and she will do his bidding gladly.

He catches her by the shoulder, a gentle touch in opposition to his usual violence, and watches as her surprise transforms into pleasure, her pupils dilating and features softening.

“Dexter.” She greets, delight dripping from of her voice. He smiles back as charmingly as he possibly can.

“Hello lieutenant.” He answers, then purposefully bites at his lips, going for a slightly nervous look that he knows women find adorable for some reason. “Listen, I wanted to speak with you, if you don’t mind.”

She looks at him coquettishly and Dexter fights a giggle. In her own way, she is adorable in her naïveté - like a dog flying face first into a glass door.

“Sure.”

She grabs his elbow and gently, but firmly, directs him toward the coffee machines in the break area. Her hand never leaves his arm even as she starts preparing coffee which is really very uncomfortable and a bit strange, but Dexter lets her do as she wishes and allows the jostling.

“So…” She prompts when the machine starts the brewing process. She leans further into his personal space while her thumb starts moving in circular motions just above his elbow and he thinks, unkindly, that she’s just getting desperate now.

 “Uh, well actually, I wanted to talk to you about Neil Perry. I really don’t think he’s our guy.”

Dexter can pinpoint the moment LaGuerta is hit with a bullet - the caliber of disappointment. Her eyes bleed dissatisfaction and her face ripples, micro-expressions chasing each other beneath her skin, before she hides them under a mask of neutrality. He enjoys every second of it. “Oh.” Escapes her, like the last whispering breath of a dying man.

Dexter doesn’t let the awkward silence settle in and quickly starts explaining his theory. He talks and talks and watches as LaGuerta’s face regains color, sees the sharpening of her eyes when she catches on to his line of thinking and then the terrible realization that they might have the wrong man.

“That’s … good. Good thinking. Thank you Dexter.” She says distractedly, pats him on the arm once and disappears around the corner, her coffee all but forgotten, no space in her bloated head for anything other than the killer that might still be loose. Dexter wonders how she’s going to go about solving this one.

He takes the forgotten cup of coffee and strolls to his sister’s desk - always a caring brother.

“Here.” He says and plonks the steaming cup under her nose, “You look like you need it.” And she does. Bent over files and documents Deb looks like she’s been haunting the midnight hours of this place a bit too often. She looks at him with thankful eyes and grunts – caveman code for thank you.

 Out of the corner of his eye he spies captain Mathews and LaGuerta arguing behind the glass door and slyly slinks back to his little desk. He refreshes the page on his computer and – yep, lab results are in.

....

He’s staring into the eyes of a scared teen, a lost soul who doesn’t know how or where to turn for help, doesn’t know how to control his Passenger. He’s been wronged and so he does wrong in turn. Dexter understands. He understands more than anyone how the darkness in them both works. How it creeps up on you in your weakest moments, how it screams for blood, uncontrolled. He thinks he might even feel sorry for the boy.

He tries to be gentle when he scrapes the dirt under Jeremy Downs’ fingernails.

In hind sight he doesn’t know what he thought talking to the boy would accomplish – it would be mightily suspicious if Dexter suddenly started visiting a killer he helped catch. What is he even doing here now? He’s not sure.

Dexter has warned him not to kill again, but Jeremy was determined to dig out his own grave.

On the other hand, Dexter also thinks that maybe he would have turned out exactly as his young acquaintance, if Harry had not been there to guide his hand and shape him into the man he is today. Perhaps it frustrates him that he had actually given the boy a chance and he threw it away. And yet, he understands that too. After all, feeling nothing is as much a curse as it can be a blessing.

Jeremy was simply looking for something, wanting that something to fill his chest. He found it in the brief moments of murderous glee, just like Dexter, just like any killer. But those brief moments are just that – brief.

To be honest, Dexter doesn’t know how to deal with this awful emptiness any more than Jeremy does. He offers some advice anyway.

He tells him to make connections, even if they are fake. To pretend. Build masks and play along. Maybe, somewhere, someday there will be an inkling of emotion cursing through him. And Dexter will help him. They can shed their costumes and lay down their masks and be seen, for the first time, by someone who won’t judge.

When he finds out, two days later, that Jeremy Downs committed suicide, Dexter feels … nothing.

....

The void inside him is groaning - pleading and threatening in turn. It’s been a while since his last meal and he needs a new project to work on now. He feels like a werewolf a few days before transformation - every human smells good now, everyone a prey, but he reins it in and tries to focus. Soon enough he finds himself shut off in his little lab, going over the case files of three different suicide victims – all female, all successful and … bingo.

Dr. Emmett Meridian, a therapist.

Dexter thinks it’s ironic, almost worthy of applause. The Passenger howls in victory and in anticipation of their hunt.      

The little side project gets interrupted by his coworker’s loud knocking. He turns around and takes in Masuka’s silly grin. “What’s up?” He asks.

“Come on, you’re going to miss it.” He tells him and motions to the center of the department floor where people seemed to gather while Dexter wasn’t paying attention. His eyebrows furrow and he reluctantly stands up to follow.

“What’s going on?”

“LaGuerta is having another interview with the Ice Truck Killer.” Masuka tells him.

“Ah.” Is the only thing he offers back, nodding. This is something he definitely doesn’t want to miss.  

The entire department seems to hold its breath when the screen shows guards bringing in the bound Neil Perry. Time slows down for Dexter, stretches wide, and he sees small details become clearer. Someone grabs the remote and ups the volume on the TV. The air in the room feels electric, almost buzzing with grotesque anticipation. He hears an officer mumble about Perry being a monster and the agreeing murmur from people around him, but their eyes are enraptured - a spark of feverish delight dancing at the verge.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Dexter thinks that these polite, sophisticated human beings, these enforcers of peace and order are not much different than any killer or rapist or thief. Just look at what these fellow law abiding citizens did to poor Sargent Doakes. Intimidated him, threatened his safety, possibly threatened the safety of his family, used him as bait and watched as he got beaten and spat on.

In the end, are they really so different?

They certainly liked to pretend.

His focus shifts back to the interrogation where the smug face of Perry fills the screen. LaGuerta is asking questions - meaningful questions this time. The very questions that Dexter presented her with.

Their resident plagiarist is smart though and evades them spectacularly. He never answers a question, just leads the good Lieutenant on a trip through fog and mirrors, slippery and evasive. Dexter almost respects him for it.

Almost.

After roughly fifteen minutes LaGuerta suddenly struts out of the room without finishing the interrogation and Dexter is, frankly, stumped. Why in the world would she do that? Did she give up? She did not seem overly upset or frustrated. Perry, of course, covers his surprise with smug satisfaction.

Dexter looks around and for the first time in a very long while feels a connection to his fellow humans as they all exchange questioning looks and helpless shrugs. Murmuring starts to resurface, like the buzzing of insects, growing louder by the second.

The tension breaks when Lieutenant returns with … a severed head? It’s pale and bloated, staring at nothing, the plastic bag the only barrier between it and the rest of the world.

But what good would-

Everything becomes clear when she shoves it into Perry’s face and he cringes, like a small child desperately trying to turn away, to not see; his smugness instantly replaced by fear and disgust. Dexter watches the absolute spectacle of a man, claiming to be a mass murderer, fall apart by the mere presence of a severed head. Ridiculous.  

It feels good, confirming his theory and his lips form a secretive smile, meant only for himself.   

The attentive audience gasps at the sudden unveiling of a fraud. Confusion and disbelief gain voice and the conversations pick up again, raising in volume, spreading like a disease. Dexter leaves the scene, satisfied.

....

Dexter is packing his bag, ready to leave his boring little office and head home. It’s been a long day and he doesn’t intend to spend a moment longer here than he has to. He thinks he should invite Rudy for a drink and tell him of the latest juicy development of Neil Perry. He was the one who made it possible after all. By the time he walks up to the elevator the message is already sent and he finds himself anticipating the response.

“Dexter, wait!”

The loud shout makes him stop in his tracks and he turns around to find Deb power-walking up to him with a grin.

“Hey, Deb.” He smiles back. “What’s up?”

“We’re going drinking tonight, want to come?” She explains enthusiastically and Dexter feels uncomfortable again.

“Who is we?” He asks skeptically. Whenever Deb comes up to him with questions like this, it’s usually a demand instead of an invitation.

“Just a few guys from the department. Don’t worry it’s not going to be a crowd." She sees the reluctance spreading across his face and playfully punches his shoulder in a show of comradery. "C’mon Dexter, even Doakes is going and you know how he is.”

Well, that really made the case for her he thinks and looks at her incredulously. Dexter has had quite enough of the good Sargent for one day. Debra must realize her mistake because she starts backpedaling just seconds later, but Dexter is not interested. Although he does wonders about what Doakes is getting out of this. Usually, he’s even more of a recluse than Dexter and that is really saying something.

“Look, Deb, it sounds great but I already have plans.” He says apologetically while his sister eyes him suspiciously. “Some other time, ok?”

“Okay.” She says at length, crossing her arms, obviously displeased by his refusal.  

“Thanks, sis. I’ll see you later, yeah?” He grins.

“Sure. See you.”   

Even as he retreats, he feels the judging gaze of his sister. Perhaps she thinks he lied to get out of the evening full of socialization – it certainly wouldn’t be the first time. 

....

He meets Rudy in a nearby bar. Not his first choice, but the doctor insisted he needed a drink. Dexter descends the stairs and crosses the poorly lit room until he spots his neighbor in a nearby booth. The other patrons are mostly gathered on the other side of the room in front of the TV broadcasting a football game.

Sliding to the opposite side of the booth he is enthusiastically greeted by his cheerful companion, who pushes a bottle of beer towards him.

“Hi.”

“Hey.” He answers.

The half-closed space offers an intimate atmosphere and Dexter sinks into it appreciatively.

He sits back and listens to his neighbor’s anecdotes and fables of his working hours and marvels at his ability to turn the most boring activity into an engaging tale. Rudy tells him a bit about the gossiping nurses and boasting doctors, about the silent race to have the shiniest accomplishments printed on a plaque above your desk and connects it to the almost brutal rivalry of medical school students.

“Everyone who goes to medical school goes there because it’s ridiculously prestigious. Of course there are people who enroll strictly because they want to help others. Strangely enough, I was one of those idiots.” He confesses almost sheepishly. Dexter thinks it’s entirely out of character and surprisingly Rudy, all at the same time.

“Really?” He laughs. “Who would have thought.”

“Yeah. Funny isn’t it? It was later that I found out not everything is roses and sunshine.” He shrugs.

“Huh. Why? I mean, why the desire to help in this field?”

“Well, if I had to pick something as a cause, it was probably because of my mother. I guess I thought by helping others, I would make up for not being able to help her. Which is ridiculous in every way, but you can’t control the way you feel sometimes.”

For a while they sit silently, Rudy lost in his thoughts and Dexter trying to decipher what to say back.

“I think your patients are lucky to have you.” Is what he says in the end. It seems to do the trick and bumps his neighbor back to reality.       

“So, how was your day?” Rudy grins. Dexter can’t help but to grin back.

“Not bad, not bad at all actually. Lots of drama in the office.”

“Oh? Well, I’m listening. Please, do share.”  

And he does. He enthusiastically explains the newest development at the station – the curious case of Neil Perry pretending to be something greater than he really is, searching for fame and glory in all the wrong places. Dexter tells Rudy about the pathetic display he presented to all the viewers present, about the mother that was found buried in the back yard, her leg cut off post mortem. The justice department, victorious once again.

It feels good, to be able to gloat – even if Rudy wouldn’t see it that way.

“Huh. Must have been stressful, but hey, I’m glad it all worked out.” He comments when Dexter finishes his tirade, raising his bottle of beer in a toast.

“Yeah, in large part thanks to you. You really hit the nail on the head.” He declares, in no small part because humans tend to love compliments and therefore tend to like the person giving them. And Dexter does want Rudy to like him, because when Dexter inevitably slips up and his lack of emotional attachment becomes apparent, his neighbor will be more likely to stick around that way.

“Happy to help.” Rudy grins cheekily. “What about that other guy? The battering rapist that is buttering up your kids … whatever his name is.”

“You mean Paul?” He laughs. “It sounds strange when you describe him that way, but yes, still around. Still annoying.” He confesses.

For a moment he’s not sure if being so open with Rudy is a good idea. After all, as jokingly as his neighbor said it, there really is a possibility of Dexter snapping and killing the guy and then what? Rudy is definitely going to know, or at least he would suspect. He calms his racing mind by reminding himself that humans do this all the time. It’s perfectly normal for Dexter not to like Paul, expected even. He thinks every sensible human would agree with him. In fact, he might even come across as extremely mild in his dislike. Besides, if worst comes to worst, he can always point to Paul’s drug dealer friends.

“Yikes.” Rudy cringes, “I mean, I don’t know what to tell you, really.”

“No advice on this particular occasion?” He half teases.

“None. I’m all dry.” Rudy shrugs, “But admittedly, I’ve never been in a situation where I have to chase off an ex.”

“Huh. That’s … unexpected.” He tells him honestly and Rudy snorts.

“Is it?”

“Uh. Yes.” He nods. 

“Why?” The doctor inquires, looking amused and baffled at the same time.

Dexter is quiet for a second before he reluctantly admits, “I don’t … you seem like the type to find yourself in all kinds of situations.” He finishes vaguely, like a politician before an angry mass.  

Rudy stares at him for a moment before visibly restraining a laugh, saying, “I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.”

“You look like an adventurer is all.”

“Are you … seriously politely telling me I look and or act sexually promiscuous and so it is confusing I had not landed myself into this type of a situation before?”

“A man whore is what I’m going for, yes.”

Rudy finally bursts out laughing at his crude remark and Dexter chuckles along with him.

“Shame on you, talking to your friends like that.” Rudy chides playfully.

“Oh, my bad, you-”

A shocked, “Dexter?” Interrupts his attempt at cracking another joke.

Even before he turns his head, he realizes he knows that voice, has heard it a hundred different times, in a hundred different ways, but never, he thinks, this baffled. His eyes snap to the stunned figure of his sister and he automatically answers her call with slightly surprised, “Deb?”

Behind his sister he finally registers the looming presence of Doakes and the rest of the marry band that travelled along.

The first thought that crosses his mind is one of surprise. What are the chances of them bumping into each other like this?

His second thought is less kind as something unpleasant stirs in his stomach. He’s not sure what it is, he just knows he doesn’t want, didn’t want, his sister meeting Rudy. Not yet, definitely not this soon. Perhaps he’s still clinging to the thought that this development will complicate his life even further. Maybe he wanted to keep Rudy a secret for a while longer, just because he could. Because no matter how kind Dexter pretends to be, he is just as greedy and selfish as anyone else. Maybe more.

Debra seems at a loss for words.

Rudy doesn’t seem to have that problem.

“Oh, is this your sister?” Snaps him out of his musing and he jumps into action. He inclines his head, “Uh, yeah. Rudy, this is Debra. Deb, this is Rudy.” 

As his poor sister tries to fumble for a response, Rudy casually shakes her hand with all the charm in the world. Dexter already has a bad feeling about the rest of the night. Like a silent predator, doubt sneaks through his bones. He’s never been a people person, in fact, he’s as far away from that as Sahara is from rain. He wonders if this will end up, as usual, with him feigning tiredness and heading home while the rest of the gathered company engages in drinking games and silly dancing. For some reason he doesn’t like that thought very much.

“Right. So, um, who are you again?” He hears Deb asking, blunt as always. Instead of answering, Rudy turns to him, “Should I be offended?” His neighbor asks, clearly amused.

Dexter thinks that probably any other person would be, when finding out they have been kept a secret, but it’s Rudy, so of course he has to defy logic. As skillfully as any natural entertainer, Rudy hands over the reins to him. He is letting Dexter answer that question in any way he wants. He just wishes he knew what the right answer is.

Of course he could downplay their relationship and present Rudy as a friendly neighbor that just happen to invite him out today. He thinks it would save him a lot of trouble and he’s sure Rudy wouldn’t mind too much. On the other hand, he finds he doesn’t want that. Perhaps it’s just to show everyone else that he can, in fact, make close connections to other people, that he’s not as weird and awkward as everyone seems to think.

“Rudy’s a friend of mine.” Is what spills out of his mouth, unwittingly. It feels like a declaration.

“Bullshit. You have no friends.” Doakes rudely pops the surreal bubble that encompassed him and in a second he regrets his rash decision. He should have gone with the safer option.

He sees Rudy’s eyebrows jumping into his hairline and the atmosphere changing drastically for the uncomfortable. Deb cringes and sends an incredulous glare over her shoulder, to which the Sergeant only shrugs and stalks off to the bar, where most of the policemen have migrated to. The only people still at the table are Angel and Deb.

“Wow. Asshole.” Rudy comments almost carelessly, still looking stunned. Dexter can’t blame him. He watches the reactions of the people around him while trying to fake a hurt expression, which in turn makes his silence all the more noticeable. He plays up the incredulity Rudy must have felt and shakes his head to look more disbelieving of what just happened.  

If the guilty look Deb shared with Angel is of any indication, he probably succeeded.

“Sorry about Doakes. He’s a good cop, just a bit … eccentric.” Angel tries to cover up the mess and elevate the miserably hostile atmosphere. Funnily enough, he doesn’t look at Dexter while saying it and instead caters to Rudy, who up until that point had no idea Dexter is essentially getting bullied in the workplace.    

“Eccentric. Sure …” His friend mumbles, sounding completely unconvinced while still judgingly eying Doakes’ retreating back. There’s indignation burning in his eyes, his mind already labeling Doakes as an imbecile and a brute, while the lines of his face turn sharp and unfriendly signaling his displeasure to the world at large. All of that on behalf of his hurt friend.

Dexter feels strangely powerful in this moment, like he can puppeteer this show with a few well-chosen words and a glance in the right direction. His Passenger makes itself known and purrs his satisfaction, whispering ideas that would elevate his position even further up the scale.

After a second of contemplation he resists the urge and shoves it to the back of his mind with humongous effort. In his normal day to day life Dexter doesn’t lie and he rarely manipulates, indulges only when his murders are involved. Harry made it perfectly clear, with his serious eyes and deep facial lines, that all lies are found out someday, that the more you lie the less credibility you have, that the more you manipulate the more people avoid you.

So Dexter squashes the urge to participate in this power grab and acutely feels the loss of an opportunity.  Luckily he is distracted by his sister who is awkwardly trying to make conversation with his newfound friend. “How long do you two know each other?” She asks, cautious as a rabbit approaching the fox.

Rudy, now firmly back to the present and not glaring daggers at James anymore, makes a humming sound, searching for the answer lodged somewhere in his memory. He rubs his chin and shrugs, “Hell, I don’t – A couple months?” His eyes find Dexter’s, searching for confirmation.

“Sounds about right.” He confirms.

“Hey, how about you guys join us?” His neighbor gracefully invites while Dexter drums his fingers on the sticky wooden table.  

“Sure.” Deb says almost immediately, while at the same time Angel makes an aborted gesture, “I think I’ll just see what the others are up to,” and awkwardly saunters away, following the herd of men dressed in blue.

His sister squeezes herself into the seat next to him, smiling tightly at Rudy, who in stark contrast looks nothing but at ease. Dexter has a suspicion he’s going to be scolded after this for keeping secrets from her.

“So you’re Debra? Dexter told me a lot about you.” His friend casually begins the small talk, like a game of chess, moving his pawn forward, wanting to see how dear Deb responds.

“Yeah,” she snorts, “He hasn’t talked about you much. Or at all.” She counters, with no finesse, like a bull in a china shop. Sometimes he wishes she wasn’t this crass. Rudy, to his credit just laughs delightedly, like it’s the most entertaining thing he heard all day.

“I’ve noticed. Sorry, let me remedy that. Rudy Cooper,” he announces, “I enjoy candlelit dinners and long walks on the beach. Pleasure to meet you.”

It always surprises Dexter how quickly Rudy can make him choke on a laugh and even Deb loses some of her stern lines.

“Don’t listen to him Deb, he’s actually a morbid, grumpy old man.” He snipes and sees his friend instantly focus on him.

“Lies, all lies,” he laments. “If you have forgotten, I even cooked steak for you.” He says meaningfully and Dexter eyes him with playful suspicion.

“Sure … after you’ve practically broken into my apartment.”

“Well,” his neighbor shrugs unapologetically, “If I waited for you, I would have been old and decrepit by the time you decided to let me in.”

“What? Who says I would have ever let you in?”

“Exactly. I had to take drastic measures.” He nods, as if assured in his nobler position and correct course of action. Dexter just snorts at the poor justification.

“You’re just lucky you brought food with you.”

Rudy laughs and Dexter watches, fascinated by the way it makes his face look so much younger and carefree. A low clearing of a throat brings him back to the present and he turns to his sister inquiringly. He notices her tight shoulders and stiff jaw and absently wonders what set her off.

“So, um, Rudy, right? What exactly do you do?” She asks when the laughter has died down and their companion has calmed.

“You mean professionally? To put it simply, I’m a prosthetic surgeon.” He answers lightly.

“Right. And if you put it not simply?” She shoots back, receiving confused blinks from Rudy and an internal wince from him. As bad as Dexter is with casual conversation, his sister is even worse when it comes to intellectually charged discussion.

“Well … ” he begins, “I’m in the field of Rehabilitative Medicine. Now, usually, one focuses on one specialty in the orthopedic surgery, but with a lot of grunting and complaining I’ve managed to get two sub-specialties: hand surgery and foot and ankle surgery, both which are surgical and non-surgical, funnily enough.” He humors Deb with his tone bordering on sarcastic, which Dexter cheerfully ignores.

“Wait, but, did you also have to take biomedical engineering?” Dexter chimes in, fascinated.

Rudy makes a longsuffering face and shrugs, “Yes and no. I didn’t specialize if that’s what you’re asking. Way too much work. Way too much. Let’s just say I had to complete an extra course along with everything else.” He says and takes a swig of his beer. “Another problem is the difference in the American and the European systems. Some classes I took in France were completely worthless here and others that had a huge role in the US were less important there. It was a mess to be honest.” He explains.

“Sure, sounds like a lot of work, but, I mean, pediatric surgeons are obviously in huge demand given the nearly unobtainable standards. You could have worked anywhere.” He points out, almost impressed by Rudy’s successful track record.

“Yeah, you’d think.” He mumbles grumpily. “I had to do an extra year of internship if I wanted to have the job.”

Dexter looks at his glass, still half full and traces the drops of moisture that gather on the outside. He thinks of his own school experiences that were more or less just incredibly awkward. Of course, on paper he was an ideal student; diligent, hardworking and even an over achiever in some eyes. In reality he was a recluse; preferring to kill deer with his father than rebel against the unfairness of the system by attending rallies and student protests.

“What can I say, impressive.” He acknowledges. “Despite all the drawbacks and complications.”

“Thank you.” He says with a gracious incline of his head. “Although the impressiveness falls a bit flat here, Mr. blood spatter analyst.” He points out with, laughing, knowing eyes. Then his face regains seriousness and he curiously asks, “Oh yeah, by the way, have you ever considered applying for a job at the FBI? As far as I can tell, you need another four years of job-related experience, but that wouldn’t really be a problem for you.”

He shrugs, silently basking in the acknowledgement of his accomplishments. “I know. I actually thought a lot about it, but I kind of like my job at the police department at the moment.” He shrugs. “We’ll see. Maybe sometime in the future.” Dexter’s not sure working there would be the best choice. He would be surrounded by agents more experienced and observant than those at the MPD. He thinks one Doakes is enough to handle for now.

“Well,” Rudy says, smirking casually, “If you ever do get a job there, you have to take me for a tour.” Dexter hums noncommittally, blinks and finds his sister frowning at him.

“Wow Dex,” she says slightly accusingly, “you could have said something. This is the first time I’m hearing of this.” She tries to go for a teasing tone, but he can tell there’s bitterness behind it. To be honest, he’s not sure what she’s so upset about, it’s not like he’s leaving without saying a word or anything like that. “Um. Sorry? I just - You never asked.” He shrugs.

She sees his confused expression and huffs, “You know what? Never mind. It’s fine.” It’s obviously not fine, but he has no idea what he did wrong, or what to do now. What does she want from him anyway? An apology, a confirmation that he’s staying?

“I was just thinking about it Deb. I’m not going anywhere for a while.” He placates. By the vicious look in her eyes, he failed to deliver. Luckily for him a slightly drunk officer decides to stumble by and run distraction for him.

“Hey, Morgan.” He says jovially. “What happened to you paying for a round?”

While his sister is distracted with fending off their unwanted guest, he turns to look at Rudy, whose face portrays mild amusement, specs of reflected light shining like stars blanketed by void. He catches Dexter’s eye and pulls out his wallet, obviously preparing to bolt out of the uncomfortable atmosphere, leaving Dexter stranded with his angry sibling. Rudy flicks his eyes toward the door and then back to Dexter, raising his eyebrow meaningfully.

Wanna blow this joint?

Is what he reads from the gesture and would honestly love nothing more. He looks at Debra, still arguing back and forth with the tall blond, and sends a grin Rudy’s way. He’s sure his sister will forgive him the abrupt departure.

Rudy gives him the stay put hand signal and slides out on the opposite side, walking quickly to the bar to pay for their drinks. He tunes back to the conversation and catches the tail end of, “Jesus, are you ever going to let that go? Besides, I’m having some quality time with my brother, thanks.”

He grabs the opportunity to jump in. “That’s okay, I was just about to leave. You go have fun with the others, we can catch up some other time.”

“Hear that Morgan? C’mon.” The drunk officer laughs and is completely ignored by all parties.

Debra turns to him, the slightest tint of betrayal coloring her eyes a deep, murky brown. She works her jaw for a moment, gaze meanderingly redirecting itself downwards, before she lets out an incredulous huff. When she looks back at him her gaze looks more wounded than angry. She’s just about to say something when her attempt gets interrupted by his neighbor.

“So, ready to go?” He says, looking completely unruffled as he turns to Debra. “Lovely meeting you, by the way.” It sounds surprisingly heartfelt. Dexter isn’t sure he believes the honeyed lie.

“Yeah, you too.” His sister chokes out, unhappily.

They leave the bar and its occupants behind and step into the warm embrace of night. The brown eyes that follow them out feel damning, but he doesn’t mind, its prickling sensations just an afterthought of the busy mind. They don’t speak as they walk across the abandoned parking lot, as the night breeze caresses their face and playfully ruffles their hair. In this fleeting moment of his long life, walking by his companion, Dexter finds a sliver of peace. Without words they find their way to their cars and Dexter follows Rudy as he drives off towards their apartment complex. Soon, they are home and he shuts off the car engine, gently, like one shuts a casket.

Rudy is waiting at the bottom of the staircase, casually leaning on the wall, his expression warm and inviting.

Dexter thinks he could get used to this.

It’s always him.

Always the favorite son.

Being Abel to her Cane she quietly loathes him.

But even more than that,

She loves.

She doesn’t understand what the hell is happening anymore.

The beer in her hand is already warm, her intention of drinking all but vanished the moment she saw her brother and his fucking friend laughing it up like Christmas came early. As much as she’s embarrassed to acknowledge it, Doakes wasn’t far off the mark when he said Dexter doesn’t have friends. Since when has he been hiding such things from her? She can hardly admit it to herself, but jealousy is burning her insides and her mouth tastes sour because of it. She is, in turn, justifying her anger to herself and scolding herself for being so very petty. She has friends Dexter doesn’t know about too, doesn’t she? (She doesn’t)

If only they hadn’t picked this bar, she would have never seen, she would have been none the wiser and perhaps, better off for it. Doubt plagues her, crippling her already fractured self-esteem and she squeezes her eyes shut, trying to convince herself this means nothing.

Then her stupid, traitorous brain replays the sound of Dexter’s laugh and her gut clenches – in hate or jealousy or desperation – because since when the fuck does Dexter do that? Not when she’s around, that’s for sure. Yeah, he scoffs and huffs and even lets out a chuckle every now and then, but not like that.

She runs her hand through her messy hair, not knowing who she’s angrier with; herself or Dexter or that Rudy C something. She feels betrayed and absolutely furious, because her brother has always been a lone wolf; he has never told her much of anything that she would consider very personal, but he has never told that to anyone else either. She was content to stand by him, not being let into his world, because nobody else was either. She has never even thought, never considered-

Her eyes sting and she feels so fucking miserable. She was supposed to be the one Dexter tells stuff to, she was supposed to be his family for fucks sake.

Instead, she just feels abandoned.

Her lower lip quivers slightly and she bites her inner cheek until it stings and she can finally refocus.

It’s not fair. Her whole life she has spent in his shadow, trying to get dad’s attention, trying to be as good as Dexter and obviously never succeeding.

When Debra complained about the amount of time dad spent with Dexter, mom simply brushed it off, said it was boys stuff and to leave it alone, but Debra wasn’t stupid or blind. She knew Dexter and dad were keeping secrets from her. She never envied Dexter more than she had in that moment, when dad took him hunting or took him to a crime scene and she had to stay in the car, feeling weak and completely useless.

She became a cop, like dad, for dad. It didn’t seem to matter at all. She meandered through high school, trying to blend in with the guys, trying to show everyone she was good enough, she was just like Dexter. She studied and fought with words and sometimes with fists, but never when dad could find out. He heard her curse once, she remembered to never do it in front of him again.

Her brother on the other hand. She doesn’t get it, what is it about Dexter that makes everyone gravitate towards him? Even in school, no matter how nerdy he was no one ever picked on him. No one made derisive comments and if they did, Dexter brushed them off seemingly effortlessly. He did everything with seemingly no effort at all. From school to love life, he succeeded at incredulous rates. Always she has envied his personality, the ability to not give a single fuck. She tried to imitate that personality trait of his, but never quite succeeded. Instead they marked her a tomboy, and occasionally a slut and their remarks stayed in her head long past the point they should have. She lay on her bed, sometimes, in the darkness unable to stop thinking of them, the people who slung derogatory terms her way, the way they said it, the way it made her feel small and unimportant, the way it embarrassed her.

She hated that she felt like a small girl sometimes, seeking protection.

Debra thought she got over the fact she would never be dad’s favorite. She thought she was okay with that. Except Dexter too seems to find other people more important than her. It makes her quiver with rage and disappointment and even more than that, it makes her feel discarded, so easily overlooked.

How is she supposed to compete with someone like Rudy?

The answer she hated and the answer that was most accurate was that she simply couldn’t.

She took a swig of cheap, warm beer and scowled.

The taste was horrendous.

His plans are laid down.

Like a tight rope that had been unfolded,

Just enough to hang himself with.

Or someone else.

The house is small, unobtrusive in its normalcy.

A one-story residential home, painted in soft pastels, next to a driveway with a garage and some trees and plants out front. It’s a nice place, nothing extravagant. The sun’s rays reflect from the windows and he covers his eyes with a hand so he doesn’t have to squint at the house numbers to read them. It’s a relatively nice afternoon day, hot as it always is in Florida, with only occasional cloud passing by. His gaze travels past the row of neat little houses in a neat little neighborhood in a neat little town and he grins.

Something people would call a safe neighborhood is about to become a little less safe.

Unhurriedly, he gets out of his car, carrying a toolkit that is holding his knives, some wire, a sedative and an insulin shot. The asphalt glitters in the sun and his shoes squeak when he walks. He enjoys the smell of pine in the air as he strolls along, waving at people in the street.

He crosses the road counting down the seconds leading to his destination.

Soon, he is standing in front of the standard wooden doors with a gleaming round handle that reflects his image, distorting it in the process. Confidently he knocks three times and waits. A shuffling is heard somewhere inside and he patiently listens for the footsteps to reach the front of the house. A floorboard creaks and then, finally, there is the sound of a lock turning with a low click. The door swings open and on the other side of the threshold stands an older man with a spider web tattoo on his elbow.

The graying man is looking at him with piercing eyes and doesn’t smile when Brian offers his hand, presenting himself as Rudy Cooper, the cable-repair man. His handshake is firm and unyielding and he invites Rudy in with a careless wave of his hand. The inside of the house is strangely decorated, the man seemingly without any real sense of style or décor. There are no photos or memorabilia hanging around, the walls mostly barren, save for a shelf or two. They come to a halt in the small kitchenette, where Joe asks if he’d like a drink, the offering that he graciously accepts. He pours one finger of whiskey into two glasses and slides one toward him.

The man is strangely quiet, simply looking at Brian as he talks about fried cables and prices, not really offering anything in turn. It perplexes him in a way he has not expected. Only when Brian’s pitter-patter of words runs out the older man makes his move.

“So? How are things?” He asks with a curt, deep rasp. Brian is silent for a moment, contemplating the strange question. He half smiles when he answers with, “Sorry?”

The old man glares at him and abruptly stands up. “Do you think I’m stupid, boy?” He almost snarls as he relocates to the couch, slowly sinking into the soft cushions.

After a second Brian follows, alert.

“You think I wouldn’t recognize my own flesh and blood?” He spits out and Brian is immediately on guard, muscles coiling tight while his friendly expression drops like a stone, replaced by blank void staring at Joe Driscoll. He stays silent and reevaluates his position.

“How did you know?” He asks anyway and his father scoffs.

“The Vietnam war taught me more than how to make my own bed, Brian.” It’s strange, hearing his own name, his real name spilling from the mouth of another after years of him pretending to be someone else. “You’re here to kill me. I want to know why.” Joe continues, seemingly unperturbed, his eyes searching. Brian isn’t sure what to say to that. The truth probably. The jig is up anyway. They are quiet for a while, before he finally relents.

“Dexter.” Is the only thing he offers.

He sees his father’s face harden. “You want to kill him too?” He accuses.  

“No.” The furrowing of Joe’s eyebrows prompts him to elaborate. “Never too late for a family reunion, I guess.”

After a long moment of searching for the elusive truth in Brian’s face, Joe nods more calmly, like Brian said the most sensible thing in the world. “You haven’t answered my question.” He says mildly.

“Which one?” He asks as he thinks about how best to disable Joe. He’s no match for Brian in skill of strength, but he would like to avoid causing a ruckus since the walls look as sound-proofed here as a single sheet of paper.

“How are you?” Joe asks again and effectively dislodges Brian out of his homicidal thought process, confusing him instead.

“ ... Good.” He answers, uncertain for the first time in a long while. He wonders what Joe is playing at.

“I went to the hospital where they kept you when you were young. At the time they said you were likely to grow up a sociopath.” His father confesses. He runs his tongue over his teeth before continuing. “Tell me something, why are you so fixated on Dexter?”

The air becomes electrified with the mention of his little brother and he wonders if Joe is deliberately trying to stir him up. He contemplates the question, but finds he’s not sure how to answer that and so he says the first thing that comes to mind. “I want us to be a family again.”

Joe is quiet after that, lips pursed, judging. They stare at each other, Brian feeling strangely free with someone else looking at his real, empty self.  

“You sure that’s what you want? Are you sure this isn’t just a game for you?”

A scathing retort is on the tip of his tongue when his father interrupts again.

“So say you manipulate your brother into your hand. Say you two are family again. Then what? Will you discard him like a wet rag? If you can’t empathize with people, you can’t make connections with them. Are you sure you’re not just fooling yourself into this? Pretending Dexter means more to you than he does, but in reality it’s just the thrill of the game you enjoy.”

The ticking of the clock is loud in the quiet room.

For a moment his eyes wonder away from the sitting figure of his father and instead chase the slowly falling dust particles that are gleaming in the sunlight.

The implications Joe has raised bother him in a way he can’t explain. What if this really is in his head? He has never given it much thought. Dexter has just always been labeled as something important in his mind.

He feels off kilter.

“I love Dexter.” He says almost robotically, then hastily corrects, “I think I love Dexter.”

“But you’re not sure.” Joe nods, confirming his assumption. It feels uncomfortable, this interrogation and he’s not sure why he’s sharing this information with Joe. It feels like a loss of control; he endeavors to get it back.

“How does it feel, to have both your sons grow up serial killers?” He snips, looking for a reaction.

Father’s expression ripples and shuts off, any emotion all but gone. His eyes are burning into Brian’s own. Then something changes and guilt makes itself known, waving at the occupants of the room from its perch on Joe’s face. The sigh he lets out is long and tired, the weight of the world expressed through an exhale. Tired hands rub against the wrinkled forehead as Brian watches, intrigued.

“What do you want me to say, Brian? That I’m sorry I wasn’t there? That I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you? That your mother’s death was on me?” There is sadness in his downcast eyes as he whispers. “It doesn’t matter what I say now. It’s not going to change anything. It’s not going to bring Laura back.”

Something twinges at the sound of his mother’s name and he harshly swallows an angry retort. He takes the insulin shot out of his bag instead. It’s time they cut this therapy session short. When he looks up father is watching him with strangely focused eyes. They both know what comes next. Surprisingly Joe doesn’t move as Brian glides closer, and even stranger, presents his arm to him like an offering. Brian hesitantly sits down next to him, watching for any foul play.

“Last words?” He asks and means it too. Joe deserves that at least.

“I left Dexter the house. I didn’t mention you in the will.” He says surprisingly gently for an ex-convict. “When I die, check under the bed.”

“Okay.” He slides the needle into the bulging vein, his eyes never leaving the flecked brown of his father.

They stay like this for a few seconds, until there’s visible reaction, Joe’s face contorting in discomfort, the shaking settling in. His rough, callous hand suddenly squeezes Brian’s own, holding it tightly in his grip, like he’s trying to drag Brian with him into the shadows of an afterlife. The hyperventilation kicks in a moment later and then he is gasping, chasing the air he no longer has access to. “Brian,” He gasps wetly, “Brian, you- you take care of Dex, ok?” He forces out in between shakes and heavy breaths.

Brian stays silent, but he listens.

“Don’t – don’t you get ca-caught. Hear me boy?”

“I won’t.”

After the shaking subsides and the last breath leaves Joe Driscoll’s body, Brian sits there, in the afternoon sunshine besides his freshly deceased father and tries to find an emotion to present as a parting gift. He thinks his father deserves something, but whatever that is, he can’t find it. Funnily enough, the satisfaction of a fresh kill isn’t there either. He untangles their hands and stands, heading toward the bedroom, following his father’s last wishes.

There is a duffle bag under the old bed and when he opens it he is almost surprised to find it full of money. He runs his hand through it, checking it over. There is a letter at the bottom addressed to him. Brian thinks it funny that he had been so thoroughly anticipated. Perhaps it is true what they say about parents knowing best. Who would have thought.

He stashes the letter back into the bag and leaves, his purpose accomplished.

....

Brian,

If you’re reading this I’m dead now, by your hand or not, it doesn’t matter. If it is by your hand, know that I don’t mind. I always knew this life was as much a farce as yours is and my past will come to bite me in the ass someday. I know this sentimentality is pointless to you and whether you take something from it or not doesn’t really matter. Guess this is mostly for my own peace of mind. Besides, my life pretty much ended with your mother and the rest isn’t worth mentioning.

She loved you, you know? We both did.

I imagine you don’t care for the sentimental value of the house or anything like that and the money speaks for itself.

I want you to know I never wanted any of this. Obviously, it happened anyway and it is partially my fault, introducing Laura to the drug dealers. I never saw Dexter or you, didn’t really want to face with what I’ve done. What I’ve lost. I’m sorry for that.

We both know this is moot, but I have a last request.

Take care of yourself. And if you can, take care of your brother. I can’t give back what has been taken from us, from you, but at least I know my sons are alive and more or less well.

Laura and I will be watching over you, son.

Goodbye.

 

 

....

That night he drives home. His real home.

The old, charming house greets him lovingly, the wind singing a hymn to his mother and the old wood creaking a sorrowful goodbye to his father. Here, every dusty corner has its own story to tell, every room its own song. The green chalk marks on the wall speak of a happy, if mischievous, childhood, the forgotten pots outside whine about missing their plants and the dusty windows complain about the lack of real light, trying to keep out the sun because nothing will ever compare.

He sits beside one of the windows watching the moon, half full now, make its way across the sky and thinks about his sibling. An image of Dexter appears, like a mirage in a desert, and he a starving man chasing after it. He imagines his brother sitting next to him, sending that charming half grin his way, both of them looking at the night sky and basking in its grandeur.

There’s a compulsion to run his fingers through the ginger hair, to caress the stubbled cheek. To rip out the grinning hazel eyes and preserve them to always look as warm.

The melancholy mood meanders, slowly, around him and he breaths it into his airway, wanders at it when it reaches his lungs and expels it with an exhale.

He loves Dexter.

It strikes with a sound of truth and he feels the rightness of it all the way down to his bones. He thinks of a life without his brother and his imagination falls short. He doesn’t want to live without his younger sibling, no, the very thought is uncomfortable, unwanted.

Joe’s questions were on point, but not applicable to Brian. They told him he was a sociopath, but is he really? He has all the traits of one.

Except, he loves Dexter.

He’s not sure if he can empathize with him, but he does love him. What does that make him?

The stars shine bright and don’t answer.           

Chapter Text

Expectation feeds frustration.

He stares with unnatural amount of focus at the photographs strewn haphazardly across the table and for the fifth time in the last two hours silently begs them to reveal their secrets. One finger traces teasingly along the edge of the photo, feeling along the sharpness of a corner, the way one does to check the sharpness of a knife. In stark contrast to the razor edge, his head feels more like a sore tooth – inflamed.

He feels his lower back protest as he stretches his arms, trying to banish the numb feeling in his muscles. A clear sign he’s been at this for much too long. Rubbing his temples - the gesture he has seen frustrated people make many a time - doesn’t help him elevate his budding headache and he wonders if this is what being stressed feels like; energy buzzing under his skin with nowhere to go, making him antsy.

“C’mon.” He mumbles to himself, “Talk to me, Tucci.”

As beautiful as he finds the murderous arrangement, it’s starting to drive him a bit mad. The clues must be hidden somewhere inside, but that is as far as his deductive reasoning goes and it doesn’t help him get any closer to his mysterious playmate. Silently, he itches with the need to prove himself smarter and better than the elusive killer. It pulses through his veins like high-octane fuel, driving him forward, pushing him to reach new heights while making sure he ignores all of the discomfort that comes with it.

But this puzzle still eludes him.

After mulling over possibility after possibility; following the white rabbit through dangerous hoops of fire, twisted turns and impossible jumps, he hits a dead end once again. Back to the beginning. Somewhere here, amidst the false clues leading from the surreal scene is the right path to the bloody castle governed by the ruthless Queen. The path that he cannot seem to find. He would ask the Cheshire Cat for directions, but the resident doctor seemed to warp out of existence, only the sound of his laughter echoing inside the empty apartment next door.

He sighs at the reminders his mind keeps throwing at him and takes out his phone to see if Rudy wrote anything back, even if he’s pretty sure he couldn’t have possibly missed the loud beep of a sent message. He forcefully flips it open and scowls as the empty screen mocks him, no unread messages in sight. Squaring his shoulders, he takes a deep breath. Obviously it’s time for some alternative solutions, since he can’t scrape up anything from the photos by himself and his handy sounding board is off somewhere, quite possibly being occupied by patients, unable to reply to a simple text.

He runs his tongue over the sharp ends of his teeth and thinks. The clock on the wall feels loud in the stretched out silence and the ticking sound is like a timer on a bomb about to go off.

His friend has been very out in the open as far as his method of communication goes. Perhaps it’s time for Dexter to do the same. He’s not about to display his kills any time soon, no, but perhaps something slightly more subtle. A game of hiding in plain sight. Something obscure and yet so ridiculously out in the open that no one would have thought to look twice.

It hits him at once and he grins, finding his way onto Craigslist - a website he never thought he would use for any purpose much less seeking out a fellow killer. The possibility of communicating with the man who is directly responsible for his many sleepless nights and buddings of unhealthy fascination sets his teeth on edge. He eagerly clicks on missed connections, a category he finds incredibly appropriate for this occasion, and soon enough he crafts a personal calling card.

Dear Ken,

I’m in pieces. Why the cold shoulder?

Love, Barbie. 

He delights at his own little word play. Satisfied with his potential progress, he clears the beautiful photos off of his desk, stashing them back into the unobtrusive manila folder and powers down his computer. He feels the tired sting in his eyes when he rubs them with the back of his hand and reluctantly gives in to his body’s demands for rest. His work for the day done, he changes into his usual sleepwear. The alarm clock is set before he gratefully throws himself under the covers, feeling the mattress dip as if trying to rearrange itself to accommodate the weight of his tired limbs.

As he lays there lazily staring at the ceiling, he lets himself unwind, his mind slowly grinding to a halt, only a hint of whispering thoughts remaining, slowly rocking back and forth like the comfortingly persistent tide. The phantasm of his mystery killer circulates around his head space, the vague outlines of thought unobtrusive to his senses with only a splash of seductive allure he is so used to feeling around his friend’s art work.

What will he do once he finds the man? Kill him? He thinks he would have enjoyed strapping him to his table. That same man who at this moment in time seems like a God, a benevolent being bestowing gifts to his wide-eyed follower. How would it feel like, he wonders then, to kill a deity?

Dear Dexter thinks it would be a power trip like no other.

The softness of the sheets lulls him, as it has done so many times before, and he feels himself gradually slipping away into his own private dream land.

In his last moments of wakefulness, he thinks about the Ice Truck Killer.

His eyelids close and he falls.  

Seconds turn into minutes and those stretch into hours and in his sleep faceless figures bob around his skull, determined to make his night restless as they bang on the drums in his ears and wordlessly scream away their displeasure like demented war cries, until finally, he wakes up in the middle of the night, heart thundering like a hundred hooves galloping through the wilderness. Disgruntled at his own psyche he tries to swallow around the dryness of his throat and squints at the clock just long enough to decide that he definitely shouldn’t be up yet anytime soon. For a few minutes he fruitlessly tries to make himself go back to sleep before admitting defeat and swinging himself out of bed. Perhaps a glass of water will help him relax.

He travels to the kitchen and grabs himself a large glass that he fills with ice cubes from the freezer before filling it with tap water, creating a satisfying crackling noise in the process. Dexter leans against the countertop and contemplates the frozen crystals floating in his glass. He takes a moment to appreciate the pale light reflected in them - the serenity it represents, the mystery it’s cloaked in and the secrets it hides.

He is getting impatient to meet with his mysterious fellow killer and the lack of bodies doesn’t help. It’s been a while since Tony Tucci was delivered to them in a show of brilliance and skill required for such a presentation.

Moonlight seeps through the drawn curtains and casts light into an otherwise dark room, a single slash of brightness cutting over the skin of night and Dexter wonders, as he listens to the humming of the refrigerator, what the cold blooded killer is doing now. Is he standing in his own kitchen, contemplating life and death and companionship? Or is he fast asleep, unbothered by such things, his dreams filled with milk and honey?

Knowledge, that there is one other like-minded person somewhere out there, gives him a sense of pleasure. Someone he doesn’t have to lie to, someone who knows what it’s like, to constantly hunger for violence and not being able to satiate it. Someone who accepts him entirely for what he is and what he does.

It’s a pleasant thought and as if the universe itself aligned, it hits him then, out of the blue. He never quite realized until this moment just how alone he actually felt ever since his foster father passed away. Harry was the only one who truly knew him. The one man who looked Dexter in the eye, saw blood and sickness and destruction, yet didn’t recoil in fear or disgust. Instead he accepted him and his Dark Passenger, offered a helping hand to guide him in the times of need. He realized that he misses that, misses having someone like that in his life.    

The more he thinks about it, the more appealing the thought becomes. He muses about the possibility of this other killer replacing what Dexter has lost, becoming a permanent fixture in his life instead of a game player he intends to win against.  They could ridicule the masses and laugh at the idiots of the world, sharing in their lack of pesky emotions and comparing their outer masks. They could tell jokes about dead bodies and inspect each other’s trophies and maybe, just maybe, even accompany each other to their moonlighting excursions.

Dexter thinks he would like that.

Of course, he has always been a solitary creature, so he’s honestly not sure how this would work out. Would he even be able to work with another killer - a type of animal that he usually hunts as prey? If things don’t work out he can always kill them. After all, they are compatible with Harry’s code and he has no inclination of keeping them alive if they prove themselves to be too untamable. He wonders what his foster father would have said about this brand new development in his life.

After he went to such incredible lengths to form a precise code with clear-cut instructions on who to kill and how to kill them, it probably never crossed his mind to craft instructions on which killer not to take a life from and Dexter will gladly misuse the loophole for all it’s worth. Harry would probably be disappointed if he found his foster son in cahoots with another monster, but then it’s Harry’s fault for never mentioning anything about having a partner in crime. He never said Dexter couldn’t coexist with another killer harmoniously. The code falls laughably short in this particular scenario and for the first time Dexter is glad for not having clear-cut rules and restrictions.

He sets the empty glass into the sink and with a more relaxed mind slinks into the bedroom, sinking into the soft cushions and promptly drifts off – this time with no strange dreams in sight. He sleeps until the alarm clock goes off and the sun peaks on the horizon.      

Surprisingly enough, he feels well rested, content, and decides to grab a morning work out before quickly showering, eating and driving to the station for another day at the office.

The traffic is bearable and only about ten people honk at him; an action he returns with a friendly smile and real sense of satisfaction. On the way he picks up a box of doughnuts, fresh as can be at half past seven in the morning, breathing in the sweet aroma wafting from the baked goods. He freely distributes them amongst his fellow people, like an offering to strange woodland animals - a message: I come in peace.   

Just as he’s about to throw the empty, generic white box into the trash can, his phone chimes in a happy high tune and he reaches into his pocket to retrieve it.

[Hey, saw you called. Sorry, I couldn’t answer. Meet me for dinner?] He reads and thinks, slightly annoyed, that Rudy sure took his sweet time. Unfortunately for both of them, he already promised his evening to his girlfriend – the one he’s been ignoring as of late. He should do something about that actually.

[Don’t worry about it. Can’t today. I’m seeing Rita this afternoon.]

[Come over after you get back from her then. We can at least have a drink, if dinner is out.]  

For a moment he thinks about being petty and refusing, but the images of Tony Tucci are imprinted to his retinas and he could really use some advice. He sighs and types back.

[I can do that.]

[Great. See you then.]   

He stuffs his flip phone back into the front pocket of his Khakis and saunters away into his small cubicle, artfully decorated with photos upon photos of blood sprays. There are already three manila folders sitting on his desk, waiting to be reviewed and he goes through them as fast as he can, writing quick and efficient reports, taking care to incorporate every detail. When he’s done, he drives to a crime scene, still fresh, the slowly drying pool of blood smelling like a pile of pennies - the coppery tang that makes his head lighter than it usually is. He enjoys it as best as he can and moves along his day.

Dexter comes back to the station invigorated; the fieldwork part of the job is the best part of the job. He is walking past his coworkers when suddenly there is a hand at his elbow, roughly yanking him around and he barely shuts down the integrated instinct to fight. He comes face to face with his irate looking sister and thanks his lucky stars he didn’t elbow Deb in the throat. That would have been difficult to explain.

“Jesus Deb.” He breaths out and consciously relaxes his tense muscles.

“Wanna get some lunch with me?” She demands more than asks and the slant of her eyebrows indicate that refusal is not in the realm of possibility.

“Sure, just let me get my stuff.” He tries to placate the oncoming storm. He knew the thing with Rudy would backfire the moment he heard her voice in that bar. Debra really has the worst tendency to pick at things until something gives, never one to let her anger and hurt go untold or unnoticed. Sometimes he’s not sure she understands that he keeps things from her for her own good.

They settle down in a nearby café for some grilled sandwiches. Not the healthiest of meals to be sure, but Dexter can’t say no to great food, especially since he knows he’ll burn the calories in no time with his unorthodox extracurricular activities.

“So …” Debra begins her inquisition. “Want to tell me what the hell that thing in the bar was about?”

He looks up at her like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a fast approaching vehicle, his bulging cheeks stuffed with crispy goodness, making him look more like a retarded squirrel instead, and starts chewing slower to buy himself some time. Meanwhile his sister watches him like a hawk, waiting for an opportunity to screech her displeasure at any wrong move.

“Well,” He finally says, cautiously optimistic at his chances of escape, “What exactly do you mean?”

Lightning flashes hot in her eyes and Dexter could swear he hears the distant crack of thunder as she leans forward, all sharp edges and offence. “Cut the fucking crap, Dexter,” She says sharply and he winces, “What the fuck was that? Since when do you hide things like that from me? If you have close friends, don’t you think I should know? Forget about meeting them, you couldn’t have just told me about it? What the fuck, Dex?” He tries to counter some of her fast paced questions and accusations, but she barrels right on, completely ignoring his attempts. “And then, I have to find out like that. Through some bullshit coincidence. Are you shitting me?”

He clamps his mouth shut and decides to wait out the storm with pursed lips and guilty looking eyes.  Honestly, he doesn’t see what the problem is here and her indignation at a secret so benign seems almost silly, but then he never claimed to understand the inner workings of human beings. He furrows his brows just so, in a way that could be reconstructed as sorrow or compassion or even guilt. He listens to her ranting and raving, navigates it the way a seasoned sailor navigates a stormy sea. Sailor hat and all.

Really, the only thing that is left for him now is to make amends and he meekly raises his hands in surrender, hunching his shoulders as a tribute to angry gods in order to earn their forgiveness.

“You’re completely right.” He tells her earnestly. “I’m sorry, I should have told you.” He continues as his sister growls at him, almost foaming at the mouth with suppressed rage. He hopes he isn’t coming off as condescending, even though he feels like she is being a bit childish.

“Yeah, you fucking should have.” She snarls, “Why the fuck didn’t you?”

He keeps his eyebrows pinched as he reluctantly shakes his head. “I don’t know.” He tells her, thinks for a moment, then decides to give her a sliver of truth to see how she would react. “I guess I didn’t think Rudy and I were even going to be friends, you know? It’s one of those things you just … don’t think about.” He apologetically shrugs his shoulders. “Before I knew it, we were hanging out regularly instead of just bumping into each other occasionally. I honestly didn’t mean to hide it or anything, it just happened.”

He watches as Debra crosses her arms, a put upon expression still gracing her face, almost daring him to continue, to dig a hole big enough to be his grave. Dexter thinks he sees something like hurt moving behind her eyes, but it disappears behind the wall of righteous fury as they face each other like two cowboys in a Mexican standoff with the dramatic music playing somewhere in the back of his mind.

Finally, after feels like hours but was a minute at most, his sister lets go of her rigid posture and tension slides of off her like black, sticky tar. Only after it’s gone and a reluctant acceptance makes itself known in the way of her curled lip, he really sees how other, how strange and unwelcome the anger and hate sit on Debra’s face. In a way, he is glad to see it gone.

“I’m still angry.” She admits, but he can see the worst has passed and he smiles at her with a cheeky grin that indicates he has seen her ruse. In response she huffs and playfully punches him in the shoulder, like she tends to do in order to relieve the pent up energy rolling around in her system.

They end up discussing the recent cases of the Miami metro, moaning over the Neil Perry kerfuffle and laughing at how LaGuerta couldn’t find her own face in the mirror much less an actual killer. They walk back to the station in much higher spirits than when they had arrived.

Dear Debonair Dexter saves the day once again and all is well in the city of Miami. He does some minor work, quickly finishing up his projects and corners LaGuerta into letting him off work early. Then he starts up his car, preparing to face the music of the failing relationship that he has yet to try and fix.

The sky above is painted in various shades of baby blue as he drives past buildings and shopping centers of various sizes, advertisements blearing at him from all sides. A car honks somewhere in the distance as Dexter takes a right turn and stops in front of a cozy looking florist shop called “Debby’s Flowers”. It’s a small establishment, unobtrusive but still tasteful, with various flowers growing out of their colorful pots, invitingly positioned outside the door.

If he is honest, he doesn’t really understand women and their obsession with flowers as means of showing affection. To him they are simply glorified weeds that wilt soon after being plucked and he himself would much prefer a gift of greater value. Perhaps some jewelry as compensation. But then, if he can spend less and get the same result, he won’t complain. Besides, as someone who likes dead bodies, who is he to judge, really.  

He gets out of the car and strolls to the shop. The wooden door opens smoothly, the hinges oiled well, despite the old appearance. He barely takes two steps into the room when the sweet smell of hundreds of flowers hits him hard and he fights the instinct to wrinkle his nose against the strange aroma. An older lady sits to the side, reading today’s newspaper and startles slightly when Dexter calls out a loud hello. Her surprised face peeks out from where it’s partially hidden by the paper. The blue eyes widen upon seeing a customer and she quickly folds it in half in order to stand, a smile stretching her wrinkled face, somehow making it appear younger.

“Oh, hello. Welcome.” She greets enthusiastically. “What can I help you with today?”

He smiles back and casts a quick glance around the small shop, taking in the astounding number of flowers and ribbons and wrappings. It’s a bit uncomfortable honestly. “Just looking for some flowers for my girlfriend.” He tells her.

At this, she lights up, her smile growing into a grin and she chuckles. “Ah, I see, I see. Young love huh? It’s good of you that you came. It’s always so nice to see a man bringing his woman some beautiful flowers.” He follows her further into the shop while she talks. “So, tell me. What is the occasion? If you don’t mind me asking of course.”

He thinks the old woman will be disappointed when she finds out this isn’t some romantic overture on his part but more of a bribe into a happier, less complicated life.

“Erm. This is more of a, um, apology I guess.” He says as meekly as possible and makes sure to look a bit awkward. “I haven’t been able to spend much time with her lately.”

To his surprise she doesn’t lose her cheer and her demeanor doesn’t change although her tone is slightly more teasingly chastising, when she says: “Aha, making amends then. Well, if that’s how it is, you have come to the right place. We’ll have to make sure to pick out the perfect flower pattern for her.”

He stays wisely silent and nods – he has no desire to be involved in patterns and frills and some such nonsense. Let the old lady deal with that. He listens as she mumbles under her breath and follows her around the shop as she picks up flowers, examines them, and either takes them or puts them back. “Carnations, carnations, where did I – Oh there it is. Red for admiration, White for pure love and adoration.”

Something wriggles at the back of his mind.

“Sorry, but what does that mean exactly?” He asks quickly and pulls the woman out of her musings.

“Humm? Oh, the flowers?” She asks distractedly. “It’s called floriography.”

“Floriography.” He repeats, his throat tight. “And that is ... ?”

She turns to him now, forehead wrinkling in thought, as if she’s unsure why he would even want to know. “Well,” she says slowly, “I guess more commonly we call it the language of flowers.”

By the slight tightening around her mouth Dexter can tell she doesn’t like the simplification. “Ah. Sounds interesting. Can you tell me a bit about it?”

“Oh - Oh yes, of course.” She gushes, a surprised smile instantly replacing her budding frown. “The most well-known example these days is the red rose of course, which symbolizes love - I’m sure you knew that one already. But obviously every flower has some kind of meaning assigned to it, or even multiple. I’m not really sure how it started, but in the old days it was used as a … some sort of a cryptic communication tool, I think.” She laughs. “Not that it was much of a secret. It went out of style quite some time ago, but ah - a few enthusiastic people like me still practice it.” She chuckles lightheartedly.  

Dexter doesn’t startle, doesn’t blink, doesn’t do anything at all really. He simply watches the woman flutter around the store while the painfully obvious truth unfolds in his mind. The previously overgrown labyrinth of hedges parts down the middle like magic and finally there it is - the path to the bloody castle. The feeling of suspended time settles into him and he finds himself at ease, contemplating the new puzzle piece that has been fitted into place.

He knows how to solve the mystery of Tony Tucci.

The old lady hands him the finished bouquet with old veiny hands and he makes sure to tip her more than she probably ever expected. He only smiles at her astonished expression and tells her mildly that she has been more helpful than she knows. Dexter leaves the small shop calmly, walking steadily to his car. It’s only after he drives for a few minutes that the anticipation starts flooding his lungs, slowly, patiently, until it’s making his heart jump and his mind race.

What is it? What is the message?

What did he want to tell him?

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know and it’s itching. Itching, stinging, prickling, clawing at his skin into his mouth, his throat – he needs to find out.

Out of nowhere, his Passenger screams at him, howls and trashes and Dexter, in a moment of surprise, loses his carefully constructed control. His stomach drops as if riding a roller-coaster and a pleasant tingling sensation spreads at the back of his head. He guns it towards Rita’s house, uncaring for the speed limits that he’s usually so good at keeping and his peripheral blurs as he speeds past honking cars, small shops and nearby houses. The street lights at the side of the road are coming in faster and faster until they are flickering one after the other like the old film productions – motion cut off and strange. His head is clear, silent and his Passenger only has a single goal in mind: The Ice Truck Killer.

They will get rid of the flowers first, as they are much closer to his girlfriend’s house than his own apartment, but neither Dexter nor his Passenger have any inclination to stay longer than that. 

Quietly, at the very back of his mind he marvels at his violently active response and wonders what this means for him. He feels almost deliriously lost, but his Dark Passenger is laughing in delight – a sound he hasn’t heard in forever – and for now that is enough. Enough to ignore his careful plans for the day, enough to ignore this stage play that is his life, enough to step out of his acting role and simply move to the rhythm of the bloody symphony rising in the air.

 It almost tastes like freedom.

The thought itself seems blasphemous.

Somewhere in the back of his mind a part of him counts the seconds that pass, calculates them into minutes and before he knows it the car jerks to a stop in front of the familiar residence. He leaves the car running, grabs the flowers and jogs to the front door. He’s pretty sure he is less knocking and more like pounding on the wooden door, but if it gets her moving outside faster, he couldn’t care less.

The front door swings open and Rita’s wide-eyed expression fills his line of sight. She draws a startled breath, but before she can stutter out anything even remotely resembling words he pushes the slightly wrinkled bouquet into her arms.

“Rita, I’m so sorry, but there has been a huge breakthrough in a case and I have to go.” He’s surprised to find that he sounds breathless – like he ran all the way here instead of drove for a few minutes. He hears her starting to say something, maybe a question, perhaps an exclamation, but he’s already running to his car and her words are taken by the wind and do not reach him.  

He doesn’t even cast a backwards glance as he peels out of the driveway.             

There is a slight smell of burnt rubber and he is quick to switch off the ventilation, but it’s mostly just a passing thing, because most of his thoughts revolve solely around Tony Tucci and his maker, his God, sending divine signs to be interpreted. Time slows down and speeds up both – driving for an eternity only to suddenly realize he is at the police station’s parking lot, already getting out of the car.

He doesn’t think when he power-walks to his work place, his mind blissfully empty as he breaks into the records storage room and no relevant thought penetrates his conscience as he riffles through papers, searching for the latest Ice Truck Killer case. He is vaguely aware of the slight musty smell that often lingers in places like these and it makes him feel heady, as if he is on the verge of some sort of catharsis.

He flips through the crisp pages that were printed out only a few weeks ago, praying someone went through the trouble and identified all the flowers stuck inside Tony. They had to, otherwise he doesn’t know what else he could do - other than taking the gory photos to an expert to identify. He really, really doesn’t want to put that kind of a target on his head.

But he would do it anyway.

He is in too deep now, the very bottom of the dark ocean, drowning.

For a second his vision swirls out of focus when he finally comes to the right segment.

Iris, Rosebay Rhododendrons, Dogbane, Sorrel, Pheasant eye.

Something like relief or happiness rips into his chest with sharp claws. Or perhaps it is the feeling of unanimous victory that makes his world spin in color now. The Dark Passenger purrs out a chuckle that ricochets inside his brain, urging him to move, quickly and steadily before someone notices their trespass. Dexter is quick to pull out his phone and take photos of the mentioned flower names before making sure everything finds its proper place. He double-checks if he covered his tracks well enough before leaving the office for the second time that day. Or trying anyway.

“-se me, where can I find Dexter Morgan?” Is what penetrates through his bubble as he is nearing the elevator. He looks to the direction of the voice, just catching his sister intercepting a package of some sort. As much as he wants to hurry back to his apartment, he is even less inclined to have Deb seeking him out later when he’s busy because of some unimportant mail delivery.

“Hey!” He calls out to the man as he jogs closer, “Is that a package for me?”

His sister looks at him strangely, handing over the yellow manila envelope. “What are you doing here? Haven’t you left already?” She asks as he sloppily signs the slip.

“Yeah, I, uh, forgot my keys.” He tells her. Seeing her perplexed expression, he silently thinks to himself that it is admittedly not one of his best thought out excuses, but it will have to do. “Well, have to run before LaGuerta sees me and forces me back behind a table.” He jokes.

His sister snorts and waves him off as he backs up into the elevator, stuffing the envelope into his bag. He presses the button for the first floor a bit too hard and tries to ignore the stiff, tense muscles in his back.    

The drive to his apartment is strangely packed with static fluttering in his ears, spreading, coursing through his body all the way down to the tips of his toes. It itches at his bones and gnaws at his teeth until he’s clenching them so hard his jaw creaks.

“Just a while longer,” is the mantra swimming in his mind, tumbling and spinning and turning until he’s half mad, looking at the car clock that seems to always show the same time, the digits moving slower than ever. The journey to his home stretches into infinity, an endless void that doesn’t want to loosen its grip. He honks viciously at a black Volvo in front that is taking its sweet time turning right and flips them the bird for good measure to try and get rid of the excess energy that gathered somewhere near his stomach. It’s a strange experience for him to be this bold. If he was in a better state of mind he would probably call it stupidity, but as he is now it feels nothing short of necessary. It takes the edge off of the sharp anticipation and soon enough he is in his parking lot. It takes him long seconds to run up to his apartment and with short, jerky movements he unlocks the door, throws down his stuff and pulls up his phone even before reaching the computer.  

“Gallery…” He mutters to himself impatiently while turning on the computer and grabbing a notebook. Quickly snatching a pen out of the metal pen holder, he scribbles down the names of the flowers. The chair feels more uncomfortable than usual as he sits waiting for his internet browser to load and he keeps shifting his weight from one side to the other in anticipation.

As soon as he is able, he starts to search for the mentioned flowers and loses himself in research.

Pheasant’s eye : Sorrowful Remembrance/ Sorrowful Memories.  

Iris : Greek goddess Iris was a messenger to the gods - I have a message for you /Faith/Hope/Wisdom/Royalty 

Rosebay Rhododendron: Danger/beware

Sorrel: Parental affection

Dogbane: Falsehood/Deception

With sorrowful memories I have a message for you: beware of parental affection and its deception.

What.

…

Hours later, when he stares at the photocopy of the will written by his now late (supposedly) biological father, he slowly comes to the conclusion that the massage he has tried so hard to uncover might not have been complete garbage.

The connection between the killer and Joe Driscoll is making his head hurt. Was he the one who killed him? Is there a connection at all? He thinks this must be some sort of a mistake, some coincidence gone wrong because if this is true, then this must mean that Harry lied and his father wouldn’t do that. Not to him.

Beware of parental affection.

And yet, there is a shimmering layer of doubt stretching across his chest and he feels like a sinner of the worst kind – the unbeliever, the doubting Thomas – but what can he do now, standing here, on some kind of a precipice, about to be swallowed by abyss.

Dexter is at a loss. He feels lost. It’s not something he experiences often. He’s been pacing around the apartment – living room, kitchen, bedroom, repeat. This restlessness is something he doesn’t like, used to being composed and calculating. Now, his armor is cracked – a gaping hole directly above his heart exposing flesh and bone and tissue, blood leaking with no end in sight. He tries to shut the wound, but he is inadequate. It feels like a defeat. He can’t stop, can’t stop his racing mind, can’t stop this terrible feeling of confusion. He’s in freefall and he can’t stop.

But maybe, someone else can help.

Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s already out of his apartment, staring at the now familiar door and knocks. After only a moment or two it swings open and Dexter tries to smile at the face on the other side.

“Hey.” He greets casually, as if his mask is not half way cracked already, as if he doesn’t reek of desperation. Rudy’s eyes catch his and he sees a smile spreading inside the brownish orbs.

“Dexter,” his neighbor exclaims delightedly. “I thought you wouldn’t come.” 

“Yeah I …” He realizes suddenly how dry his mouth is, how his heart beats a different tune to his usual tempo, how tight his chest feels; almost like some strange force had wrapped its hands around him and started squeezing until his bones creaked and his breath came in short pants.

A hesitant, “Dex?” brings him out of his head and he realizes he should probably say something, explain, but it’s so hard to think; even harder to open his mouth and speak as the sounds get stuck in his throat like a swallowed fishbone.

He looks at Rudy, swathed as he is in the warm halo of light coming from the apartment, sees the divide of the threshold separating them, Dexter standing in the dark hallway, and it itches at something in his mind. He can’t bring himself to trespass into the warmth of someone else’s life when he can feel the tentacles of dark tar on his back, clinging to him insistently and realizes that he doesn’t belong here, doesn’t -   

Abruptly, his self-deprecating thoughts get cut off when his neighbor pulls him in for a hug, but his mind is still reeling. It takes him a moment to register the pressure of Rudy’s arms around him; arms that feel strangely cold - a sensation that is not unwelcome after the scorching heat of unrest he’s been battling against. He feels the rough palm against the back of his neck and another at his hip, the smell of something aquatic and lemony filling his senses in a light, crisp tone. Rudy smells like the sea, he thinks to himself stupidly. But it’s a comforting thought and he finds his own hands clutching at the red shirt his friend likes to wear. He thinks the gesture has a deeper meaning, something heavy and profound, but he can’t figure out what. Standing there, wrapped in his own confusion battling comfort, the very air seems to stand still, time stopped, a tiny cog falling in place and it feels like coming home.  

“Dexter.” Rudy exhales, a strange tenderness in his tone and Dexter is hit by something strong and visceral that makes his arms wrap tighter around his friend almost of their own accord and he pulls him even closer, their chests uncomfortably, pleasantly tight like he wants to mold their very beings together, creating something new. He feels Rudy’s hand like a brand when he drags it from his neck to shoulder blade, down, to the place just above his hip and he has to fight off a violent shiver. He feels their breaths synchronize as their chests expand in timed intervals and the longer they stay like this, the more at peace he feels until his head is tingling and he floats in some sort of a light trance.   

Then, the moment is over as his friend pulls back and Dexter is acutely aware of the loss. “Come on, let’s get inside.” The doctor invites warmly and he is shoved into the present much too soon for his liking.

The moment his feet cross the threshold Rudy practically drags him into the living room. They settle on the couch comfortably before the doctor turns to him with a serious expression, foreshadowing the flow of the oncoming conversation.

“What’s going on, Dex?” He asks, quietly concerned and Dexter finds his eyes moving down to his lap, searching for an appropriate answer in the dark patterns and stitches, unable to even begin wrangling his thoughts and emotions into submission.

“My biological dad died.” He says, just to get it over with.

When there is no immediate sound or movement from Rudy, he slowly continues with, “Harry told me he died when I was a boy, but either he lied to me, or this is some kind of a mistake and-” He takes a shuddering breath, unable to continue, his mind unable to focus. Then a steady hand grips the back of his neck and although he doesn’t look up from his lap, he can feel focused eyes on him, tracking his every move. With the reassuring weight, he finds that perhaps he can continue after all, so he starts talking. About his foster father, the early days of his time with the Morgan family, the hunting trips, the honesty that he always expected from Harry, the honesty that was now put in question and the further treacherous thought of what else did he lie about?       

“People lie all the time, Dexter.” Follows the quiet comment, piercing the silence that crept in at the end of his monologue.

“I know that.” He tells him, almost angrily. “But not Harry, not to me.”

“Why not?”

“I …” He doesn’t know how to answer that. Why not? Because Dexter was always honest with Harry so in turn Harry should … no. That’s not right. There is no rule for this, no formula where the rules go both ways. The world tilts and he feels foolishly naïve. He looks at his hands and finds himself analyzing the light tremor in them as if they are not a part of him any longer.

“Harry … was the only one who ever really knew me. All of me. I thought – I mean, I could tell him anything. He was always … he always encouraged me to say what I think, but-” He forcefully stops himself before he says something he won’t be able to take back. Rudy doesn’t say the obvious; that Dexter was the blind one here, for so long, so long he has played the fool-- instead he bumps into his shoulder lightly, “Oh yeah? So you are more of a charlatan than a friend then?” He jokes gently. It makes it hard to breathe.   

“You got it. A charlatan is a good description of me.” He says, trying to get the joking tone down, but the words ring so very true, because he is a fraud isn’t he? He is a faker in all things that matter and suddenly he just wants out, wants off of this couch, out of this apartment, away from Rudy. Then a hand grips his wrist, his eyes snapping to his neighbor’s serious face and his racing mind stutters to a halt like an overworked engine.

“Hey.” Rudy says quietly and Dexter feels like spilling his guts to him right here in this moment. The words jumble together in his brain somewhere and he stares at Rudy almost pleadingly. The doctor, as if sensing his distress, shifts closer, the hand on the back of his neck squeezing in order to pull him in, just slightly, inviting him to share his space. He looks more serious than Dexter has ever seen him when he says, “You don’t have to be anything but yourself with me, Dexter.”

Rudy says it like a divine truth and he wants to believe him so badly, but he knows this could turn ugly, so, so ugly, faster than either of them would be able to stop it and then – Dexter doesn’t want to think about that. “I can’t.” He breaths out almost in a whisper, his eyes still trained on Rudy’s own and watches as his friend cocks his head, something like displeased confusion appearing somewhere in the spaces of his face when he, just as quietly asks, “Why not?” And really, what is he supposed to answer to that? Even this, now, is too much. He feels like he’s made a terrible mistake even acknowledging that there is something else there, behind the mask he wears and he absolutely can’t go into more detail than that. “I can’t.” He repeats again, desperately willing Rudy to understand.

After a moment he leans closer until their foreheads bump into each other and he has to close his eyes against the onslaught of strange emotion he’s never had the displeasure of having to sort through before. It feels like something painful, and bitter and almost sweet and he savors it while it lasts.

After some time, he lets his head slide down, until he can bury it in Rudy’s neck and feels his friend’s hands wrap themselves around his back for the second time that evening. It feels … nice.

Please, he thinks, don’t let this end just yet.

They stay like that for a long time.      

He is allowed a bite.

But he is greedy, he wants more.

And in turn,

It consumes him.

The bedside lamp has been turned off hours ago, the moon already low in the sky, and yet here he is, lying on his stomach still chasing sleep. Or perhaps he is running away from it, with how awake he feels. Surrounded by the smell of fresh linen, and the soothing sound of cicadas outside, he should be able to fall asleep easily, but the sandman didn’t dare step over the threshold of his room tonight. There is no respite for him, his thoughts chasing each other like demented hounds, ready to tear out the throat of anyone stepping too close and in his heart there is a dancing Lilitu, bringing with it a never-ending storm. He feels strange. Wrong somehow. It’s like his iron will is the only thing keeping him lying here in this bed.

It’s almost too late now anyway, he realizes, to start counting sheep. In an hour or two he will have to get up, start his day and go to work, so he reluctantly gives up any pretenses and thinks that maybe this would be a good time to rise and be productive instead.

His mind decides to rebel against him then and he finds himself recalling the feeling of his arms wrapped around his baby brother, the warmth of a breath tickling his neck, the whispers of stubble dragging along the underside of his jaw, the fingers digging into his shoulder blades and it makes his body buzz like an electric current is running through it. He is a live wire as he hears the soft sounds uttered in his ear, the breathless quality of it and feels the press of a body against his torso.  

He mutters a soft curse into his pillow, hands clutching the soft sheets, as he feels his entire being shiver in pleasure.

Fuck.

Propelling himself out of the bed, he stalks to the shower, trying to wash off the high-strung tension in his shoulders and back. He scrubs at his skin until its raw and is only satisfied when the feeling of insects crawling under his skin tapers off and he is able to breathe again.

He gets dressed with quick, practiced movements and starts packing a bag. As he is folding his shirts, he thinks to himself quietly, that committing patricide is the best decision he has ever made and it is with wide-eyed wonder that he thinks back on the domino effect of the whole thing. This is it; the fruit of his snap decision that now tastes so very sweet. There is the knowledge burning somewhere inside him, knowledge that he was the one who ripped Harry Morgan off of his pedestal, gripped him tight by the ankles and pulled, pulled until the fake prophet toppled over and crashed into the unforgiving earth. Very quietly, almost guiltily, he thinks that maybe now he can even take his place and the thought makes pleasure run like blood through his veins.

Brian feels like he could be kneeling in prayer – to a God or the Devil he doesn’t know, but there is such profound lightness in his heart, one that makes sleep or food or drink seem irrelevant. Like he could survive on this feeling alone for days and weeks and months. Even the prospect of the entire morning being filled up by patients does nothing to dampen the mood. He feels like soaring.

As he comes into work, he thinks his coworkers must notice something too, because there is an air of intrigue around them as they take note of his easy smiles and warm looks. It makes them flock to him even more than usual and for a moment, he feels fondness for them, like a shepherd for his herd.

“Well, someone’s in a good mood today.” One of his colleagues teases when they sit down in the cafeteria.

“You have no idea.” He replies laughingly, biting into his sandwich.

“Oh yeah? Any particular reason?” A nurse that often bats her eyelashes at him asks. The rest listen with barely hidden anticipation, hungry for some new piece of gossip to redistribute later.

“A little getaway with a friend for the weekend.” He tells them after he lets the moment drag for a bit.

“What, like, a holiday?” She asks again.

“No. Like an escape from you guys and the paperwork.” He tells her with a raised eyebrow. The table erupts in laughter.

“We knew you loved us, Rudy.” One of them says.

He only smiles politely and keeps the darker thoughts to himself.

...

The white and gray building looms over him as he stands in front of the large glass doors. He enters with no hesitation that someone like him should perhaps be experiencing when surrounded by countless cops milling about their sanctuary. Yet he feels at ease, completely at home, as he’s strolling to the elevator that will take him to the upper floors where his prize awaits. He feels the slight lurch in his stomach as it starts moving upward with a low whirr and he leans on to the metal railing fixed inside. There is a light ping and the doors open to a wide hallway. He looks around interestedly as he walks toward the main room that appears to be some sort of an office space.

“Hey,” Someone says behind him and he turns to find the Sargent that he has met in the bar with Dexter. “What the hell are you doing here?” He asks, just shy of a hostile tone.

“Just looking for Dexter.” He tells him politely, if slightly frostily. It’s no secret he doesn’t like the man one bit, although he’s sure he could be amusing in his own way. If Doakes is surprised at his lack of apprehensiveness that most people feel in the man’s company, he doesn’t show it. He simply snorts and walks further into the mess of cubicles as Brian watches him strut away and disappear between the tables.  

Just as he’s deciding which direction to head in first, he hears sergeant’s muffled gruff voice a bit further down the room saying, “Hey weirdo, your boyfriend’s here to see you.”

The answering, “Unless Rita had a sex change I missed out on, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” almost makes him chuckle. There is some more angry muttering, then Dexter is stepping into view, hazel eyes dragging along the room until they fall on him and his brother grins like a fool, beckoning him closer. Brian answers the summon without a thought, like an obedient dog following his master’s wishes.

“Hey,” He greats. “You ready?”

Dexter is already walking back to his cubicle, his bag sitting half-packed on the table, as he gives his own greeting, “Yeah, just finishing up.” He turns his head to give him a quick grin before he gets back to shoving things into his carrier bag. Meanwhile Brian takes a look around, fascinated by the vivid blood spatters, being careful not to disrupt anything. He looks at the dripping red put up all around the walls and his mind flashes to another place, another time where blood slid down the walls, ate into their pants and slushed around when they-

“Nice place.” He comments, almost sarcastically, even though he’s not sure if he means it or not and Dexter lets out a huff of breath that might be considered a laugh. “Thanks. Decorated it myself.” He says and Brian, turning very slowly into his direction, grins. “Oh brother. Your decorating style is killer.” he tells him and starts giggling helplessly as Dexter rolls his eyes at him with a quiet oh my god escaping his lips.

“I’m laughing on the inside, I promise.” His sibling tells him tonelessly, but he can see his lips twitching, so he just stretches out a hand and ruffles Dexter’s mop of hair. “I know you enjoy my jokes, don’t lie.” Brian says, still half laughing. His brother bats the offending appendage away with an adorably annoyed grumble that makes his insides turn to mush.

After that, they get out pretty quickly, leaving Dexter’s car in the parking lot and migrating to Brian’s. No reason to take both, he had argued, Think of the environment Dex.  

As they speed down the highway, Dexter’s honey tinted eyes looking out to the horizon, the sun shining and glittering in his messy hair that has become even more wild – courtesy of the gusts of wind coming through the half open window – Brian thinks that maybe this is it. Maybe this is as good as it gets. As good as it will ever get. An open road and his other half just a hair away, driving with him forever, to the ends of the world and beyond even that if they want.

While stealing glances at his baby brother’s visage, he realizes that he wouldn’t mind if this was how the rest of his life was spent. He wouldn’t mind one bit. It almost scares him, but there is no room for that in his chest, no room for anything other than this strange pink cotton cloud like fluff that makes him feel untouchable. It swirls inside him, around and around like a whirlpool and he almost doesn’t know how to describe it other than it feels like he has somehow wondered into a real life fairytale. The air itself is buzzing, light and slightly drunk, the sun’s rays shine golden like the hair of a fair maiden and he forces himself to burn this moment into his memory, to take it all in and chisel it into his brain to last an eternity.

Maybe this is what it feels like, he thinks, when a soul that was split at birth comes together again - on four legs instead of two, but together nonetheless.

In this moment his heart feels like a glass full to the brim.       

Chapter Text

They arrive at their destination in the late afternoon; a time when the sun is dropping low, no longer a source of immense heat but is instead a small glowing ball in the distance, painting the sky in hues of orange and pink. He eases off the gas, slowly increasing the pressure on the brakes and automatically shifts into lower gear as they drive through the quiet neighborhood that consists of elderly pensioners and middle class families. He pretends to look around interestedly while listening to the instructions his brother so precisely gives out and soon they come to a stop in Joe Driscoll’s driveway. 

The house looks just as he remembers, cozy and quiet, almost sleepy, with no indication something horrible happened inside it not that long ago. He gives himself a moment to take it all in – the house, the air, his brother – and carefully stores the memory the same way one would frame and hang their favorite photograph. Then, he looks to his right, falls into the murky depths that make up his sibling’s eyes, and grins. 

“Well, here we are,” he says as he turns off the engine and unbuckles his seatbelt. 

A quick glance to his right reveals Dexter’s less than eager expression as he seems content to simply sit in the car for as long as possible. The frigidity gives way to grudging acceptance when Brian nudges him with his elbow, grumbling a slightly impatient, “C’mon Dex” as he exits the car. 

The sunset blinds him for a moment as he walks towards the trunk to gather both their duffle bags, and he squints at the golden hue painted on the gleaming asphalt. He picks up their bags and follows his brother to the plain-looking front door where Dexter is already fumbling with a box of cleaning supplies in one hand and the key in the other. As he finally manages to slide it into the lock, Brian can almost hear the click-click-click of the pins jumping inside the cylinder. 

The door opens into a dark hallway. They enter slowly, their steps almost timid as Brian follows his brother’s lead, and Dexter, a cautious creature by habit, seems to be staking out his environment, patiently searching for any sign of danger. 

Brian shuts the front door with his foot and flicks on the lights. The tight hallway gives way to a bright living room and for a few moments both simply stand in the center of it, looking around, scanning the furniture, the walls, the décor. He thinks this moment should signify something special, but in reality, it’s all rather plain, he decides. 

Neither of them feel the need to indulge in imaginary reminiscence, so he carries their bags to the corner of the room where they won’t get in the way. The nearby shelf catches his attention, the framed photos of Joe Driscoll appearing like an unwanted ghost, here to crash their private party. His feet take him towards them, his hand reaching up to slowly run one finger against the edge of the frame, taking his time tracing the face of a father he barely knew. There are some hints of Dexter in the slant of his brow, in the curve of his grinning lips. It’s funny, really. Brian always looked more like their mother. 

He tips the frame and watches as it topples face down, hiding its contents.  

“Your dad was into bowling,” he says over his shoulder and gets a disinterested “Oh?” in response. 

He turns to see his brother sorting through the stuff they brought – the black trash bags, the knifes, cleaning products – with little to no care. Not that Brian blames him, after all, this is practically just another chore for them both, although it admittedly carries a slight nuance. He turns towards the second door and decides to explore the rest of the house while he can. 

Traveling from room to room he realizes with a slight frown that the house doesn’t have a back door and the windows are difficult to pry open, the old mechanism clearly rusted. The bathroom window is too small to squeeze through, but at least the floors don’t creak – the exception being one floorboard in the hallway – making it a good house to sneak around in. If the place was more appropriately built, catering to their darker natures, he would suggest that Dexter keep it. You can never have too many safe houses, he has learned. Unfortunately, things being as they are, the property is mostly useless. 

He circles back to the small kitchen and starts checking over the cupboards, sifting through pots and pans until he comes across a Turkish coffee pot and almost groans in satisfaction. He’s been dying for a cup of decent coffee all day. He sets the water on the stove and walks towards the living room to find Dexter. 

“Hey. Want some coffee?” Is the first thing he asks when he walks through the door frame, eyes zeroing in on his brother’s bent over figure. Dexter looks up from the junk he’s currently inspecting and squints at him skeptically. “The sun is setting, you know?” he informs him needlessly. 

“So it is.” He grins. “Is that a yes, then?” 

Dexter shrugs his shoulders and goes back to his treasure hunt that’s taking place in one of the cupboard drawers. “Sure. I need to go to the hospital morgue after that, mind if I take your car?” he asks, even though they had already discussed it. 

“You know I don’t,” he tells him. He’s just about to turn around to go back to the kitchen when Dexter stops him with, “Oh, by the way, did you find any spare sheets for the couch?” 

Brian honestly hasn’t even thought about sleeping arrangements, but this seems entirely unacceptable to him, and his Shadow agrees with vicious hissing. 

“Haven’t really looked, but I’m sure there have to be some. I’ll start cleaning up when you head to the morgue and see if I can find any,” he says and dispassionately observes Dexter’s answering nod.

When he returns to the kitchen, the water is boiling. He is quick to take it off the stove and add the ground coffee that turns the clear water into a dark brown bubbling mess, the strong smell permeating the air. 

It takes him a while to actually find the almost inappropriately small cups, pour in the coffee, and carry them to the kitchen table. Dexter shuffles in a moment later, looking around with a closed off expression, as if cataloguing all the work that needs to be done and lamenting his involvement in it. Brian watches his sibling sit down and eye the small cup of dark liquid suspiciously. “This is coffee?” he asks, and Brian playfully scowls.

“Hey. Have some faith. Honestly.” 

He watches as his brother takes a sip, promptly scrunching up most of his facial muscles, and snorts. 

“See?” 

“Jesus.” He grimaces, and Brian chuckles.

“It has quite a kick to it, doesn’t it?”

“Did you have to make it so strong?” he asks almost offended as Brian shrugs.

“I didn’t sleep well, so if you want me up and running…” He leaves the implications to hang. 

For a few minutes they only sit in each other’s company, both lost in their own thoughts, until Dexter finally breaks the quiet with, “Maybe we should make some sort of a plan for this.” 

Brian agrees of course. “Well, we can start with the living room and move out from there. It seems to be the room with the most junk. The faster we get it done, the better.” They hash out a few more details before Dexter has to get going. 

“I’ll get started without you then,” he tells him as his brother is walking out of the door.

The moment the car disappears out of view, Brian closes the door with a loud thump , walks through the house, straight into the garage, and opens one of the large cabinets, pulling out the tool kit every self-respecting bachelor has stored somewhere in their home. He has roughly half an hour, one tops, to dismember that ugly, flea-bitten sofa that a man literally died on. With a comfortable and perfectly usable king-size bed somewhere in the house, he has no intention of sleeping anywhere else. 

Especially if that means sharing it with Dexter. 

He strolls through the small house with ease, his movements becoming more fluid now that there’s no longer any need to act a part, and kneels in front of the couch. Inspecting the rusted, dust-filled underbelly, he fights the strong urge to simply burn the thing. His Shadow hisses at him to get a move on, and he opens the tool kit with a satisfying clicking sound that signifies the bitter end for the decades old sofa. 

He looks at the tools available for today’s surgery: wrenches, ratchets, sockets, along with a hammer, tape measure, pliers, and a variety of screwdrivers; he’d dare say he’s well equipped. Unscrewing some of the main holding points and replacing others with smaller screws should hold the thing steady enough so it doesn’t completely collapse. It takes him roughly twenty-five minutes to make the couch sturdy enough to hold, but a liability if someone were to try to pull it open to turn it into a bed. Or, at least it should work that way. 

He scowls. He doesn’t have more time to waste on this, especially since he’s going to have to hurry up with the packing to give himself a bit of an alibi, so to speak. Mind made up, he gathers up the tool kit, returning it to its proper place. If this doesn’t work, he can always think of something else.   

Running a hand through his hair, he gets ready for the more tedious part of his assigned duties. Rolling up his sleeves, he starts by emptying out the drawers and sorting the junk into piles that he then packs into the large trash bags. From there on out, his movements become flowy, his body settling into a familiar routine of grabbing, shoving into a plastic bag, wrapping . It feels disappointingly underwhelming when his fingers slide along the waxed paper instead of the cold softness of skin and bone that he is used to. At some point he finds old, dusty records of 80’s rock and while he feels no need to listen to them, he plays them anyway and imagines.

By the time he hears the rumble of his car, he has made some significant progress as there are about two dozen neatly packed trash bags waiting near the door to be taken to die a slow death in one junkyard or another. He makes a quick mental note to ask Dexter if he wants to sell the bowling equipment and heads into the kitchen for a well-deserved glass of water. The front door clicks open, and he listens for the distinct muffled shuffling indicating the return of his baby brother. He feels his Shadow perk up with an enthusiastic cheep as if to call out a greeting. Dexter doesn’t have the same well-developed manners and stays insultingly quiet, gratifyingly betraying the lack of need for social niceties in Brian’s company. He’s not sure whether to feel insulted or elated.

Suddenly, a loud crashing sound interrupts his musing, and he feels his hackles rise as he quietly puts down his half full glass, moving swiftly towards the epicenter of the noise, his mind switching from a sleeping predator to a live wire. He entertains the thought that it wasn’t Dexter who entered the house after all and prepares to deal with all possible outcomes. The tableau that greets him as he enters the living room disarms him like a bucket of cold water, and he stares into his baby brother’s equally wide eyes as he lies spread out on top of the right side of the collapsed couch.  

“What the hell?” he finally dares to comment as Dexter scrambles to his feet, both of them equally flabbergasted.  

“Uh. The couch collapsed,” his brother tells him, sounding befuddled as he starts patting himself down to try to get rid of the dust. 

It zings into him like a lightning bolt; the laughter bubbles inside his chest suddenly, almost like a surprise and before he knows it, his restraint, already beaten down by shock, well and truly snaps. Then, he’s guffawing, eyes scrunching shut with mirth as he automatically brings a fist to his mouth like he’s trying to stop the sound from expanding further into the room and leans on the doorframe for some stability. He hears a disgruntled huff, but he can’t seem to stop himself long enough to take a decent breath, much less try to wrangle in his laughing fit. He thought his meddling would simply prevent the couch from extending, but it looks like he made it collapse instead.   

“S-seems like we’re sharing a bed,” he chokes out as he finally looks at Dexter who is now fighting the embarrassment hidden behind an insulted visage. 

“Right.” 

Goodness, he had no idea his brother could sound so spiteful. Tonight is full of surprises it seems. Dexter turns to look at the couch again, his anger giving way to confusion as he cocks his head. “I’m not really sure what happened,” he mumbles, and Brian has to bite his lip to keep quiet. Just one more jab, he promises himself, just one more and then he will make amends, smooth out all the ruffled feathers.

“Well, one thing is for sure,” he says, “No more burgers for you.” 

The snarl he gets for that one is completely worth it as another bout of laughter trembles through him, and he hears Dexter storm out of the room, too busy gripping his sides to stop him. When the merriment derived from his brother’s suffering tapers off, he heaves a sigh and runs his hand over his face. Looking at the mess in the middle of the room takes some of the enjoyment out of him and he reluctantly makes his way over to pick up the remnants of his successful plan. Might as well continue with the cleaning of the living room, if only to give his disgruntled sibling some space. It wouldn’t do him any good to go chasing after Dexter now that his pride has been prodded a bit too hard, so Brian stretches and goes to work.   

After about an hour of labor, hauling all of the larger pieces out of the house to be taken to the junkyard and vacuuming the vacated space, he decides he has repented for long enough and finally deserts his station to look for his hopefully mollified sibling. With silent steps, he searches through the house and finds Dexter in the garage, sitting on the floor with his back turned towards him, completely disregarding the dirty tiles as he sorts through the smaller equipment inside one of the drawers. The position he’s sitting in nudges forward a memory of Dexter playing with his toys, young and carefree, making noises as he moves his cars and trucks this way and that, eyes shining with glee. 

His body moves on its own as he walks across the room and folds himself to fit behind his brother, who freezes as he feels arms wrapping themselves across his middle. Brian rests his forehead to the back of Dexter’s neck, just as he has always done when they were small and loses himself in the sensation, breathing in the smell he has always associated with his brother: something like clean cut grass or perhaps shavings of tree bark. The feeling of warm skin beneath him and the images of the past still flickering behind his eyelids lull him into a warm sense of peaceful laziness. 

“Um,” Is what his brother’s response boils down to and Brian’s lips twitch, imagining the weirded out expression climbing up his face. He stays silent, as if waiting for something, for Dexter to react, for him to call him – 

(“Biney?”)

“Rudy?” 

The disappointment stinging his chest takes him by surprise. He is really starting to hate that name, the name that isn’t his, the name that Dexter of all people should be able to disregard, and he lets out a very quiet sigh of displeasure before he answers with, “Mmm?” to show that he’s listening and to distract himself, to ground himself in reality.

“What are you doing?” Comes Dexter’s perplexed voice, and Brian loves that he can feel the vibrations of it through his back. He burrows closer, drags the tip of his nose lightly along his exposed neck, up and down, in the slightest of movements, before he lifts his head and watches with a great deal of fascination the goosebumps that erupt on Dexter’s skin in response. “Hugging you,” he tells him as he settles his chin down on Dexter’s shoulder as if monitoring his work.   

“Erm, yeah. But why?” his brother asks, struggling to turn his head as if to see for himself the atrocity of their human contact. Brian of course isn’t deterred.

“I wanted to,” he tells him plainly.

“Oh.” 

Apparently, that is as far as his reasoning needed to go in Dexter’s mind, because after a moment he, slightly hesitantly, returns to his previous sorting. Brian feels the muscles and joints and bones move under him as he watches his sibling sifting through the metal tools.     

“Does it bother you?” he asks quietly as he lazily traces the hesitation in Dexter’s movement with his eyes.

“…No?” 

“Then, it’s fine, right?”

“I...guess. I don’t think that’s what—” he starts but trails off. 

I don’t think that’s what we should be doing. Or maybe, something like: I don’t think that’s what people usually do. Is that what he’s trying to go for? Brian feels a mischievous grin tugging at his lips. 

But how would you know, brother dear? Maybe they do. And that’s the whole problem, isn’t it? The moment a situation arises that is new and unexplored, Dexter has no idea what is appropriate and what isn’t any longer like he can only navigate the roads already traveled with any kind of common sense — anything unknown and his mask just crumbles away. All that’s left then is Dexter trying to follow the lead, to take cues, albeit very clumsily. 

His Shadow whispers to him, and he has to fight off a shiver as he contemplates how far that naiveté stretches and just how long it would take for him to realize that this is not something other people would really do. How far would Dexter allow him to go? Probably as far as he feels at least relatively comfortable with. But how far is that? The adrenaline starts to filter into his bloodstream as he thinks about the possibilities.

“How was the morgue?” he asks instead and listens as Dexter describes his visit to the small town hospital. He lets the vibrations of the smooth baritone lull him into a state of pleased relaxation. His eyelids droop until they’re half closed, only a narrow slash of vision remaining. The words flow past him in a steady trickle, and he listens for the cadence of the voice rather than the meaning of the words themselves. It’s a nice voice. He wants to listen to it for eternity. Slightly distantly he realizes the story is coming to an end and already mourns the loss. 

“The doctor wasn’t very helpful, but I guess there’s not much more for me to do there anyway,” he concludes. “Can you hand me the trash bags?” he asks right after, and Brian drags his eyes across the room where the cleaning supplies lie stacked in a box. He feels irritation at the abrupt ending Dexter has issued to the closeness he had been enjoying up until now and exhales through his nose as he reluctantly detaches himself from his brother. 

He walks across the room, tears off a few standard black bags, returns to kneel next to his sibling, and opens the bag for Dexter to throw stuff in. After they fill it with junk, he grabs a thin rope and ties it before going back to watching his brother. 

“I should get back to packing up the living room,” he tells Dexter, who only spares a tight nod in his direction, already busy with cleaning out the rest of the shelves. 

The slight annoyance tapping at his chest like a very persistent woodpecker wanes as he walks through the house, reminding himself of his careful planning and the end goal that awaits. Still, he cannot completely get rid of the itch under his skin. How annoying.  

He throws himself into cleaning. The minutes slip by and before he knows it, most of the room is packed and ready to go. All that’s left is the old wooden armoire in the corner of the room. He heaves a sigh and rubs his forehead with the back of his wrist. This is getting tedious. 

His brother strolls into the room just as he’s about to tear off a few more trash bags. “Hey, finished already?” he asks, and watches Dexter as he scans the now almost empty room. 

“Uh, yeah. More or less. You?” 

“Just need to clean that, then I’m done,” he says and points to the large cabinet. 

“I’ll help,” his brother graciously offers and kneels, pulling open the large bottom drawer. Brian joins him at his side, and they sort through the spare clothes, unceremoniously shoving them into the trash. He notices a strange hesitation in Dexter's movements when he hands him a rope, a light pause as he slides open the OLFA knife, an uncertain twitch when Brian moves with no warning to reach for the tape lying behind his brother. Puzzled, he observes the tightness of his brother's hands, the stiffness in his shoulders, the shift in his body language. Finally, he looks up, catches the glance thrown in his direction and…it's almost – expectant.

He frowns in confusion as he takes a closer look at his sibling who is now undecidedly squirming under his gaze. Letting his Shadow take the reins for a second, he allows himself to move, hesitantly sliding behind Dexter again. Seeing him freeze makes Brian reluctant to continue, but his Shadow plows on and slowly eases them into the same position they had taken up in the garage. He feels Dexter’s back go tight against his chest, and as his hands slide over Dexter’s ribs, across his chest, his arms wrapping themselves around his middle, he wonders if he misinterpreted his brother’s actions. Hoping he’s not crossing a line, he pulls him closer and looks for any sign of resistance. Then, Dexter’s muscles relax and he settles more comfortably into his hold.

Oh.

Something darkly amused and almost pitying starts curling in his stomach — seeing him so disgustingly desperate — before his Shadow explodes into sadistic giggles and he feels the possessiveness rear its head, flooding in with the force of a tsunami. Any restraint that he was trying to hold onto is swept away in a torrent, crashing against his well laid plans and flooding the foundations of his mind. Oh, how terrible his sibling can be. How inconsiderate. There is simply no way he can let this slide now, no way to avoid it as his Shadow has already grasped the wheel with one paw and is tugging at it, changing the direction of their destination. Brian lets it. 

His fingers start to drum lightly above Dexter’s rib cage, and he watches his own ministrations with the bottom half of his face pressing gently against his brother’s shoulder. He feels the fabric against his fingertips, the hard muscle beneath it, the bones he imagines cracking to get to his sibling’s beating heart. After a moment, Dexter starts to hesitantly fidget in his hold. 

“Ticklish?” he asks and feels the strain in his lips as he tries to hold in a monstrous grin.

“Not really,” his sibling mumbles, confusion coloring his tone. Brian has just enough sense left to mourn the plans he is now tearing apart so thoroughly before he ducks sideways and gives in. He draws closer, placing a barely there kiss where Dexter’s shirt collar ends, feeling the fleeting warmth of flesh against his lips, then another slightly higher, moving up and brushing featherlight kisses against his neck, imagining the taste of victory. In his head his Shadow chuckles, aware just how weak he is to temptation. Feeling daring, he drags his fingertips across Dexter’s side, his sibling freezing into a marble statue, uncharacteristically uncertain.

“Y-Um. Rudy?”

“Hmm?”

“What are you doing?” he asks again, a sense of déjà vu filling his mind, and Brian has to clamp down on the instinct to bite as he places another kiss behind his ear. The light shudder that ripples through Dexter, only felt because of their proximity, merely urges him on and vaguely, somewhere at the very back of his mind, he thinks this might be a mistake. Then, he simply stops thinking.

The hand previously occupied by tracing the indents of Dexter’s ribs slides up his chest, his neck, until it’s cupping his chin, putting pressure on it, turning it in his direction. Their eyes meet, Brian’s hungry half-lidded stare meeting Dexter’s pleasantly confused look, and he closes the space between them. 

He stops just a hair away from meeting Dexter’s lips for one last tease.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he says quietly as a matter-of-fact.

“Oh.” 

Then, he leans in and lightly brushes his lips against Dexter’s, sparks igniting behind his eyelids, his fingers flexing alongside Dexter’s jaw, the barest of stubble prickling his palm, and his hand travels up even further, circling back to tangle his fingers in the slightly coarse ginger-tinted hair. For a moment, he concentrates on the sensation of lips that feel strangely soft, if slightly dry, before he slowly pulls back, long enough to witness the dilation of Dexter’s pupils, the surprised want painting itself across his expression, making Brian’s hairs stand on end. Unable to help himself, he surges back, putting on more pressure, turning their lip lock into a slick, sliding mess of sensation, his tongue teasingly slipping in for a taste and feels Dexter’s gasp against his mouth. He is surprised when his sibling turns in his arms, clumsily clambering into his lap, hands grasping at his shoulders desperately. The familiar territory makes his baby brother bolder and he pushes closer, biting into Brian’s lip, sending sharp coals of want through his system. 

Brian’s free hand, the one that isn’t pulling on Dexter’s hair, fists desperately into his brother’s back, trying to get him closer, pulling them together until parts of their chests press together almost painfully. Somehow, the slick slide of their tongues manages to heat up his usually cold person, and he feels hot sparks in his stomach melting the ice in his blood. This feeling is new: a strange mix of feverish desire and cold triumph and something else that makes him taste sugary sweetness at the back of his throat. He wants to dissect the feeling further, but Dexter steals his focus when he lets out an involuntary noise — small, quiet, a surprised squeak more than a moan really — and it makes all of his terrible attention snap towards his demanding sibling. Both of his hands leave their designated positions in order to make a teasing trail down towards the hem of Dexter’s shirt and shamelessly slip under it. He feels Dexter’s thighs clench in surprise at the skin on skin contact, and he revels in the sensation of smooth tissue under his fingertips. He feels along the bumps in his spine and feels the shirt bunching up at the bottom, revealing more skin, like a teasing entrée, almost daring him to drag his teeth over it. 

Instead of fantasizing of things to come, he decides he wants to hear that sound coming out of Dexter’s mouth again, so he presses his nails gently and firmly on either side of his spine and slowly drags them down. When that is not enough to elicit more than an arch and a light shudder, he pulls his hands out from underneath the now rumpled shirt, places them instead on the thighs hugging his frame and digs his thumbs into the inner sides where he drags them further and further up in a circular motion, almost like a massage technique he learned in college when he was dating a very skillful masseuse. 

He is rewarded when Dexter’s head flinches back, tearing himself away with a stuttered, “Mmmgh,” his hips automatically grinding forward. Brian can feel the buddings of an erection pressing against his stomach and surges forward with a grin, biting into Dexter’s exposed neck. He feels the flex of Dexter’s hands pressing against his shoulders as he lets out a surprised gasp at the stinging sensation of teeth and at the back of his head his Shadow laughs at his brother amusedly. Aside from climbing into his lap like a very clingy koala, his sibling hasn’t moved at all, greedily letting Brian do all the dirty work, and he almost lets out a chuckle as he runs his tongue over the bite mark, lapping and sucking at it. How beautifully, delightfully selfish of Dexter, thinking only of his own pleasure. 

Or perhaps, his Shadow whispers, it’s not selfishness that keeps him static. Perhaps it’s the pure sensation that’s rendering him as still as a cowering lamb, sweeping away any conscious thought. 

Both possibilities fill him with pleasure, for different reasons, feeding different parts of his psyche. 

He detaches himself from Dexter’s neck, leaving behind a wet patch of reddened skin. His insides quiver with possessive thrill at seeing his mark so blatantly displayed for all the world to see.

His hand shoots up and he presses his thumb firmly into the red patch, dragging it around in a circle as if to rub his saliva into the skin, to make it absorb his essence, forcing himself into Dexter by any means necessary. His sibling certainly doesn’t fight the intrusion as he stares wide-eyed at the ceiling, imitating a particularly sinful marble statue. Unable to leave him alone in his awe for long, he leans in and peppers kisses down the middle of his throat, being careful not to put too much pressure on the delicate part, lest the monster squirming beneath him takes it as a threat instead of the courting ritual it is. His other hand joins the play and he drags it along Dexter’s chest, trying his luck and running his fingernail over a covered nipple. 

“Mmh-ah.”  

What a lovely sound. He wants more of it. 

He stops his ministrations for a second as he thinks about how to go about this, when finally, Dexter moves, his hand gripping onto Brian’s hair, tugging demandingly, almost an order to continue and who is he to deny such a mouthwatering invitation. Continuing his previous exploration of Dexter’s chest with one hand and tugging him closer with the other, he brings their faces back together, letting the following kiss wipe off his own budding smirk. He feels need building in his abdomen, wanting to grind up against Dexter like some common animal, but contrary to what his libido might be implying, this isn’t about intercourse or intimacy or anything like that. It’s about possession. He wants to possess everything that is Dexter: his thoughts, his emotions, his monstrous desires, the sounds he makes, the grins, the scoffs, the smallest of micro expressions. He wants to have all of him.  

Just as he’s about to move, Dexter breaks the kiss with a strangled, “Rudy,” and it feels like a slap to the face, jerking him back like someone yanked on a leash and he’s the one getting choked by the collar. 

This is not what he wanted, this is all wrong, wrong, wrong: wrong time, wrong place, the wrong fucking name—

He realizes then that he can’t freeze up or Dexter might never let him do this again, sensing something strange moving beneath the murky waters that consist of Rudy Cooper. So he pulls him in, pulling him close into a tight embrace, in order to hide his own displeased face. Despite his best efforts, it seems his sibling sensed the shift in the atmosphere anyway because he tenses in his arms, and Brian almost lets out a curse. As he tries to work out a plan for some very needed damage control, he runs his hands up and down Dexter’s back, this time with no sexual undertones and more as if trying to sooth a particularly tense animal. 

Not knowing how to best approach the situation, he lets the silence stretch, listening to the sharp intakes of breath his sibling fights against, letting the sensation of comfort lull him into a false sense of security. 

“Rudy?” Dexter asks after a while, uncertainty coloring his voice.

“It’s ok,” he responds quickly. “I just realized we better stop.” 

As Dexter freezes in his arms, Brian decides keeping Dexter close in any way possible is preferable to the fallout of this unplanned adventure he had concocted, so he opens his mouth and tells the truth.

“It’s just that…If we go any further than that, I wouldn’t want to let you go. I would want to keep you all to myself, and I don’t think that girlfriend of yours would appreciate that,” he whispers. “So for now, let’s not tempt faith, hm?”

Dexter doesn’t say anything for a while, keeping his thoughts contained behind the stark white fence of his teeth, and Brian hates it. He hates everything about this, suddenly. This should have been perfect; this moment should have been perfect. Instead here they are, wallowing in their combined misery and uncertainty. Pathetic.

He lays his cheek onto Dexter’s head, feels the soft hair brushing against his temple, and tries to pretend he didn’t royally fuck up everything he’s been building towards. His hands slow, gently moving alongside his sibling’s spine, up and down, focusing on the feeling of soft fabric underneath his fingertips. Then, he feels a hesitant nod and stops his ministrations completely. Something strange is clattering inside his chest, something that feels like shattered glass and cracked iron. He is so close to his baby brother that he can feel every breath, every move, every twitch, and yet he has never felt further away, the invisible chasm between them insurmountable. 

Dexter is still and quiet, and Brian wonders what stories are unfolding under the thin shell of his skull. Is Alice playing cricket now? Angrily hitting the ball, uncaring about the flamingo’s head as it busts open on impact and blood spills onto the white roses, painting them red. Or perhaps she sits inside of a room she’s too big for, slumped in melancholic apathy as her limbs grow larger and larger until she fills up the space and has nowhere to go, peeking through the now miniature door to the colorful world she cannot join. 

The quiet atmosphere is broken when Dexter rouses and slowly pulls back. For a moment in time, that feels much longer than it should, they sit with their faces almost touching, neither really looking at the other, the closeness feeding the sense of loss until his brother carefully untangles their legs and stands. “I’ll um…finish up in the garage,” he says tonelessly and leaves after an awkward glance directed his way. Brian hears the subtle thak-thak-thak of his feet moving further away, but he doesn’t dare to look after his brother’s retreating back.  

Damn it.  

He brings his hand up to his face, runs it over his mouth, roughly rubs his cheek with his palm, and slides it upwards until it covers one of his eyes. He stares at the wall through the gaps in between his fingers, his lips pressed in a tight line, and wonders how to fix the mess he had created. Cleaning is the furthest thing from his mind right now, his thoughts zigzagging like angry bees, so he sits there and stares at the cream colored wall until his legs start to ache and his head buzzes. Distantly, he wonders how much time has passed – a minute, half an hour? Certainly long enough that he should have come up with a plan of action by now. Instead, his head feels as heavy and as empty as the bowling ball he had put away before.  

Finally, he manages to push himself up and continue where they left off – cleaning the old armoire of the last of its contents. He gathers the remaining pieces of old clothing and starts to shove them mechanically into the trash. When he ties the last bag, he looks up, sees the open cupboard doors, stares at the vacated space, and thinks that if someone were to tear his ribs open right now, pull them apart from the middle until they jut out from his torso, he would have been just as empty. He smiles humorlessly and runs a finger along the middle of his chest as if searching for a hidden crack. 

His musing gets interrupted by a loud curse coming from somewhere inside the house, and his head snaps in that direction, his legs immediately following the source of the sound. The wrongness of hearing the vulgarity slip through his sibling’s mouth makes him quicken his step, crossing room after room with something that strikes uncomfortably close to alarm. He finds Dexter stumbling into the kitchen, clutching a bloody hand. 

“Dexter,” he says, then stops. 

Something in him turns ice cold at the sight of red flowing from his brother’s palm, dripping onto the smooth linoleum floor, and suddenly he sees a knife cutting open a pomegranate, carving its way through the skin, pulling it apart until it gapes wide, the red gushing out, and he hears his mother’s voice floating towards him from the kitchen table.  

“Ough, what a mess. Just look at all that juice. Brian, quickly now—”  

Then, he blinks and finds himself at the kitchen sink, clutching Dexter’s hand in a punishing grip, holding it under the running water that cleanses the wound: the sticky, messy, red diluting into a light pink that disappears down the drain. Suddenly, air floods his lungs and his head clears. 

He automatically checks the depth of the cut and is relieved to find it’s not as bad as he had feared. Then, he grabs a clean rag from one of the drawers and firmly presses it over the injury. “Jesus. Dexter ,” he hisses when he finally finds his voice, the sharp pressure in his chest making him sound furious. “What the hell were you doing?” he asks demandingly, unconsciously pressing harder onto the wound until his sibling lets out a gasp of discomfort, and Brian reluctantly lets up.  

“Sorry,” his brother apologizes quietly as he awkwardly fidgets on the spot. “It was an accident.” 

For a second Brian fears he won’t be able to swallow the red hot fury eating away at his insides. 

No one is allowed to make Dexter that shade of red, not even Dexter himself and suddenly — suddenly, he wants to grab his stupid brother and shove his head into a wall again and again and again until the carelessness all but splats out of his brain. How dare he—

Then Dexter looks up at him, his big, round, swamp-like eyes guiltily peek through his lashes; the same way they did back then, when he broke Brian’s favorite toy or ate the last of the chocolate cereal flakes, and Brian’s anger deflates like a balloon that’s been pricked by a needle. The fury leaves his body in an almost literal whoosh when he exhales. All that’s left in him then is the possessive, obsessive need to make sure his baby brother is ok. To touch him and feel his heart beating in his chest, to feel the blood running through his veins rather than out of them, to feel him move, feel the life in him. 

He practically manhandles his sibling against the counter, keeps pushing until he’s sure the edge must be digging into Dexter’s back, and all but growls as he fits himself against his brother. They’re so close now Brian can feel the surprised exhale hitting his cheek, and Dexter’s eyes widen until he can see little specks of green mixed in between the brown.

“Don’t do that ever again,” he orders. His sibling’s plush pink lips fall open in astonished awe, and Brian’s eyes immediately zero in on them, the magnetism too hard to resist as he leans forward and softly kisses them. He wouldn’t have been able to stop himself if he tried. The lips are warm under his touch, velvety smooth, and he relishes the sensation as he gently but insistently deepens the kiss, licks and nips and sucks until they’re both gasping into each other’s mouths, and Brian has to brace himself on the edge of the counter, keeping his baby brother trapped in between his arms. If he thought his sibling’s lips were warm before, the inside of his mouth is positively burning. 

He runs his tongue over the roof of Dexter’s mouth and feels his sibling shudder in delight. This is nothing like the frigid sensation of corpses he is used to handling. His baby brother is so alive under his touch — not cold and unmoving, but warm and responsive and safe . 

“Why do you have to make me worry so much?” he pants against Dexter’s lips when he finally detaches himself from their lip lock. He draws back a bit, only enough to be able to look down into his brother’s dark, lust-filled eyes and watches as Dexter’s eyelashes flutter like the dark wings of a startled moth, something strange flashing behind his eyes, some emotion that slips away too quickly for Brian to decipher . 

“Sorry,” he says again, soft as satin and as deceptive as spider silk. Brian is pretty sure there’s something he’s missing, but after staring at his brother’s eyes for a few heart beats and not seeing anything else there, he reluctantly lets it go. Instead, he steps away to give them both some breathing space and checks his sibling’s wound. He is glad to note that it has stopped bleeding and doesn’t need stitches, but it still needs to be wrapped. 

“Come on. I think there’s a first aid kit in the bathroom,” he tells him and lightly pulls at Dexter’s wrist as the doctor side of his personality takes over.

When they get to the bathroom Brian makes him sit on the closed toilet seat while he rummages through the cupboard shelves. He emerges with a red, medium-sized pack and takes out the antibiotic cream and unopened bandages.

“No alcohol?” his brother asks, half teasingly, half curiously. Brian shakes his head distractedly as he takes Dexter’s hand and gently applies the cream, smearing it over the cut.

“No. That wouldn’t help. Alcohol just irritates the tissue, and I’m sure you don’t want to deal with an itchy palm along with everything else,” he explains. “Usually, you would only run cuts like these under tap water to clean out any debris and wrap them. Antibiotic cream, if you have it on hand.”

“Huh. I think I’ve been lied to. This is nothing like the movies,” his brother jokes, and Brian glances up at his amused face before he dutifully returns to his task.

“How shocking,” he says blandly, wrapping the bandages tightly around the palm.

After he finishes, he taps Dexter’s hand in a mock consolation and starts putting everything away. He closes the cupboard doors and turns around, only to find his brother sitting exactly where he left him, attentively watching Brian move about, distractedly nursing his hurt hand. 

“It’s late,” Brian tells his sibling casually. “How about we get ready for bed?”

He doesn’t wait for Dexter’s response and strolls out, grabbing their duffle bags from the living room, which he then carries into the bedroom. His sibling is already waiting for him, leaning against the wall. They take turns in the bathroom, cleaning themselves up and changing into their nightwear, and when Brian finally climbs under the covers he’s too exhausted to be able to truly appreciate lying next to Dexter. The emotional roller-coaster he’s been on today took its toll and the fact that he hasn’t slept in forty-two hours doesn’t help. It’s funny, if he thinks about it. Nothing makes him quite as tired as processing emotion and nothing makes him shut off quite as fast.

The tiredness flushes away any and all emotion he has left, leaving him completely hollow. As he burrows his head into his pillow, he thinks he should be excited about sleeping next to his brother, but at this moment, the only thing that even remotely interests him is the dark embrace of sleep. He welcomes the hooks that pierce into him, pulling gently, dragging him further and further down into the soft oblivion. He’s asleep before he knows it.

…

Waking up is a strange sensation. Usually, he would experience a moment of peaceful rousing, that pleasant stage between dream and reality, before fully waking. 

This morning he is ripped out of the pleasantly warm obscurity so quickly and so effectively it gives him a mental whiplash. His neck stings, sharp and sudden, penetrating the dark fog his brain was buried in only a second ago, and he hisses as his head flinches back, trying to escape the sensation. His eyes open with some difficulty, eyelids still glued together from sleep, and he cringes at the unpleasant throbbing at his neck. That doesn’t stop his hand from snapping towards the source of the pain. He grabs a fistful of hair and looks down to find his sibling’s smug face peering up at him. 

“Did you just bite me?” he asks incredulously, his voice raspy and raw.

“Just returning the favor,” Dexter tells him quietly, eyes shining with suppressed laughter, and Brian groans as he slumps back onto the pillow.

“I wasn’t expecting a camisado, Jesus Christ.”

Dexter laughs up his sleeve like the demented little fruitcake he is pretending not to be, and Brian feels a grin stretching itself across his face. He thinks today is going to be a good day.

And it is.

They make breakfast because apparently Dexter can’t function without it and is consequently exposed to Brian’s mockingly raised brow all throughout the meal. They talk about silly things as they clean the house like how high Plato was when he wrote The Republic and if Xena isn’t perhaps just about the best thing ever. Then, Dexter mentions food and they get into a massive disagreement over whether pizza can be eaten folded up or not, which somehow leads them to the fMRI studies about televised violence causing activation of the right amygdala. 

The only hiccup in his day happens while Dexter’s taking care of the trash outside. Brian is clearing away the dishes when his brother’s phone suddenly rings, buzzing away on the marble counter. He leans over and when he sees the word “Rita” flashing on the screen, his Shadow rouses from its sleep and bares its teeth in a silent threat. He cranes his neck to peek through the window, sees his sibling thoroughly distracted with all the bags and crates, and quickly picks up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Dexter,” comes a sweet, feminine sounding voice. “Listen, is this a bad time? I think we need to tal—” 

“I’m sorry but Dexter isn’t here right now,” he interrupts her, putting on a gentle, apologetic tone and listens as she abruptly cuts herself off. The silence on the other side is deafening. He slips the phone between his shoulder and ear and continues washing the plates. 

“Hello?” he prompts.

“Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry. Who-Who am I talking to?” she asks, flustered like a baby deer. Cute.

“Rudy Cooper,” he says. “We haven’t met, but I’m a friend of Dexter’s. You must be his girlfriend, right?” 

“Ah, um, yes, but why do you have Dexter’s phone?”

“Oh, he left it in the house, so I thought I should just let you know to call later or something. He went to the morgue to hash out some final details like whether or not he wants Joe cremated and stuff. You know how it is. I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” he tells her as he distractedly admires his reflection in a steel knife.

“Uhm. I—Joe? Who’s Joe?” she asks, her voice hitting a slightly higher note. Brian thinks her screams would be pretty to listen to. 

“You know. His bio dad?”  

“…His what?”  

Brian pretends to be shocked into a silent stupor while he subtly checks on Dexter, still slaving in the yard.  

“Um, hello?”

“Oh, sorry, I…He didn’t tell you, did he?” he says, trying to sound properly embarrassed.

“Tell me what ?” she asks, then continues with, “I’m sorry, but I—I don’t think I understand anything anymore.”  

“Ah, yeah, look, I’m not sure I should be the one to tell you this, but…,” he stops for dramatic effect, takes a breath, and continues, “We’re in Dade City right now.” 

Love, she thinks,

Is like a fragile plant.

It blooms slowly, over time,

Needs to be nurtured, watered, fed.

But sometimes, 

she thinks,

it 

can

happen

in

an

instant.

She hates weeks like this one, where absolutely everything has to go wrong. Apparently, after a bout of good luck, the unhappiness always follows– creating some sort of karmic balance, her friends always tell her playfully.  

As she uninterestedly plays with her pink straw, sullenly poking at the ice floating in her Cuba Libre, she thinks karmic balance can bite her. 

She observes the mostly deserted bar, a few patrons scattered around empty tables here and there, and relishes in the fact they look just as down in the gutter as she does. An off night if she ever saw one. There’s an unspoken comradery hanging around the room, stemming from the hardships rooted in their eyes, miserable postures, and morose table tapping.  

But hey, at least the drinks here are decent.    

A high-pitched screech of rusted hinges announces the entrance of another soul, down on its luck, wandering into the shabby building with the intention of adding their own flavor of dolour to the ones already festering in the air. She automatically turns her head towards the entrance and cynically wonders what kind of scruffy pillock is joining their Titanic’s band.

To her surprise, a tall dark-haired man makes his appearance. She can’t help but note how handsome he is: sharp cheekbones and a strong jaw, offset by a mop of soft looking curls. He walks in with stark confidence painted across his frame and for a split second her mind flashes and she imagines brushing a hand through his hair; imagines him kissing her, soft and sweet and then rough and bold; imagines pushing him down onto the bed— then she turns back to her drink and banishes the fantasy that gripped her. She hopes to somewhat hide her thoughts by taking another sip of her alcoholic drink, quietly wishing for the tall stranger to notice her. 

She’s slightly surprised when her silent prayers are answered and he walks up to the bar just a few stools to her left where his silhouette orders a drink in her peripheral. A pleased rush fills her belly, and she slyly runs a few fingers through her hair.

“Keep it cool ,” she urges in her head.

Still, she’s unable to keep her eyes to herself and glances up, only to meet his gaze as he does the same, and they both look away as quickly as humanly possible. “ Well, ” she thinks, “ this is awkward. But promising.”  

She wastes no time jumping into the lifeboat, waving a white handkerchief at the rest of the sinking masses, wiping away imaginary tears. “ So long suckers, happiness is calling .” She cackles triumphantly in her mind.  

Someone clears their throat next to her, and she looks up to find Mr. Handsome bashfully rubbing the back of his head, looking off to the side when he says, “Hey, uh, mind if I sit next to you?”

“No, no. You just, um, go ahead,” she rattles out and mentally kicks herself for being so easily flustered by a pretty face. The guy looks at her with a blindingly white smile, and she has to bite her lip to hide an answering grin. “ He really is very handsome, ” she thinks shyly. 

“Rudy Cooper,” he says and offers his hand— the hand which she takes with no small amount of satisfaction when she says, “Gabriella Stewart.”  

They start talking about their work, jokingly complaining to each other about the nature of unbearable bosses and nasty coworkers, lamenting how out of reach retirement still is. Then Rudy tips the scales, unintentionally making them plunge into deeper waters of their surprisingly similar life experiences: a druggie father, a distant brother, a doting mother. She feels like she has never connected to anyone quite as quickly as she has connected to him. 

There is something special about Rudy, nothing like other guys. The entire evening he never once asks for her number, never insinuates he wants anything else except for some engaging conversation. “ A true gentleman,” she thinks besotted as she tells him an anecdote about her nephew learning to perform magic tricks, proclaiming he wants to join the circus. Rudy laughs, warm and genuine, and she falls just a bit in love with that laugh.

“I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face, if a kid came up to me doing that,” he tells her.

“Why? You think it’s silly?” she asks, slightly disappointed for the first time this evening— she herself quite likes the charm.

“Nah. It’s not that. It’s just, uhm, I read somewhere that when the priests still performed mass in Latin and mumbled, ‘ Hoc est enim corpus meum ’ that the non-Latin speaking people somehow misheard it as hocus-pocus . And apparently, that’s where the phrase comes from. I can’t stop thinking about that every time someone mentions magic,” he says playfully, and she laughs.

“Is that true?” 

“Well, I’m not sure. But it would be funny even if it wasn’t.” He grins.

They spend a few more minutes telling jokes before Rudy looks at his phone and hesitantly turns towards her.

“Hey, listen, I had a really great time. If I— I mean, would you..?”

“I would love to,” she tells him, and the smile he gives her is blinding.

…

A happy anticipation flutters in her belly like a hundred butterflies when she watches Rudy unlock his apartment. She can’t believe how lucky she is. 

He invites her in with a charming sweep of his hand, and she giggles at his over-the-top chivalry. He really is so kind, and so funny, she has to bite her lip to contain the smile threatening to overtake her face.

When she crouches down to take off her shoes it’s not her belly, but her head that gets hit.

Darkness has never claimed her faster.

…

She wakes up cold.

Her eyes flutter open, the harsh artificial light hitting them straight on, and her head feels like it’s been hit by a baseball bat. It throbs in tandem with her heartbeat, pounding viciously in a way she hasn’t experienced since her wild college days. The shiver that wracks her body jolts her already sore head, and she moans in pain and discomfort. She wonders where the cold is even coming from— did her AC break?   

She goes to sit up when she feels it. Something is preventing her from moving. Forcing her eyes to stay open, she squints down at herself and gapes. Her mind can’t process what she’s seeing except for the feeling of dread pooling in her chest, making her breath cut off in a short, harsh gasp. 

“What is this?” she whispers, the puff of air creating a white cloud, her lips trembling.

Her eyes flick around in alarm, and she takes in the gray steel walls, the table, the saws, the knifes, the lights, the shelves full of buckets and what looks like— 

All at once, the memories of last night slam into her. A lead weight drops into her stomach, the room starting to dip sideways as she sorts through the flashes of the bar, of the drink, of Rudy. 

Her chest feels like someone forcefully stepped on it, her ribs caving under pressure, taking away her ability to breathe. There is no uncertainty, no delusions about what is going on like the way they sometimes portray it in media, and she firmly tells herself to breathe as black and white dots fill her vision. 

She glances at the red liquid slushing in the transparent containers— has one desperate moment of self-pity, one heartbeat of gut-clenching horror, one second of trying to swallow down a scream— before she starts to struggle. She jerks and kicks and slams her chest as far up as she can, the quiet groans and gasps filling the room and bounding off of the walls. 

The straps holding her down are sturdy, the table unmoving as she wriggles and bucks in a rising panic, the harness painfully digging into her skin. It’s an industrial thing, something that won’t break easily, she realizes after she expends a tremendous amount of effort pushing against the restraints in her terror, her heart droning a beat so fast she worries about having a heart attack. 

Her lungs burn as she bonelessly slumps against the metal table, breathless. She feels frustration well up, her eyes stinging, when no amount of exertion is able to break her free. 

The sweat cools and freezes on her skin as she pants exhaustedly. It’s not long before she’s shaking, her teeth chattering so loudly she’s sure they’re going to break, and she finally understands what people mean when they say cold to the bone . It seeps into her, all the way through her, like she’s nothing, like she’s air, and as she chokes on a dry sob, she has a crazy thought: “I will never be warm again.”   

The door swings open, and her entire body goes still at once like someone pressed a pause button somewhere and she lies suspended in time. Her wide, wet eyes stare unblinkingly at the dark silhouette looming in the doorway and suddenly she’s ten-years-old again, Nat Geo blaring from the screen. 

“…on the other hand, the city-dwelling black widows spin their intricate webs in hollow spaces beneath houses, underneath furniture or floorboards, and in a variety of other nooks and crannies where human touch rarely wonders by… The spiders sense movements as small as a hundred nanometers. The more furiously their prey struggles, the faster their hungry captors are alerted…”

She blinks, her frozen eyelashes brushing her cheek as her whole body trembles at the unwanted comparison. The expression on Rudy’s face is terrifyingly blank as he looks at her with detached, calculating black eyes. 

“Spider eyes ,” her mind whispers.

“Please,” she says, and although her throat isn’t working properly, her voice merely a soft exhale that sends water vapor dancing towards the ceiling, it still feels like a cataclysmic thunderclap piercing the quiet stillness. As if on cue, the terrifying figure starts walking towards her, the light crunch of his shoes loud in the somber atmosphere that stifles the room, and she tries her best to melt into the cold table beneath her. Light catches his frame, and she observes the dark-gray apron covering his bare chest. Once, she would have relished in the sleek muscles of his exposed arms. 

“Help me,” she says, and her raspy voice shakes. “Please… please .”

Something glitters, catching her eye, and she glances down, straight into the reflection of a glinting knife and suddenly, she finds her throat works fine after all.

She screeches like a banshee, thrashing against the bonds digging into her naked skin, rubbing it raw, and she screams and screams and screams and doesn’t stop until her throat feels like it’s being ripped apart. She’s crying now, big ugly sobs shaking her entire frame as she’s unable to get enough air into her lungs, and she feels like a pinned butterfly, uselessly hoping for an escape that won’t come.

It reminds her of that time, so very long ago now, when she visited an amusement park. Remembers how she bravely waited in line for the freefall ride, remembers how the courage only lasted until she was already firmly seated and strapped down. Then, the crushing panic as she realized, with a dawning horror, the inevitability of her fate. She remembers thinking how no one would stop the machine even if she screamed until her voice was gone, remembers feverishly searching for her daddy in the crowd, then realizing that even he, even he , couldn’t help her now, couldn’t reach her—

Rudy grimaces at her, rubbing his ear with his wrist. 

“Do you really have to scream so loud?” he asks. “The neighbors will think I’m some sort of a psycho.” 

Then, his face flashes, his eyes crinkling, a quiet heh-heh leaving his mouth in a grotesque mimic of a laugh before his face regains its blankness like a ripple in a lake. Her heart drops into the floor, her lips quivering as she looks at his dead eyes. 

“Please, please, just let me go,” she begs, her voice trembling, breaking on the last word. 

Rudy cocks his head like a crow— robotically, teasingly, and every bit as interested in gouging out her eyeball as the animal he mimics. “Let you go?” he asks, frowning. “Weren’t you practically throwing yourself at me just hours before?” 

She sobs at the unfairness of his ridicule and squeezes her eyes tightly shut, not wanting to look at the monster in front of her any longer. She feels some of her tears running down her temples and some down her cheeks, tickling her throat, then dripping onto the metal table below. 

“Hey,” comes a low growl right next to her ear. Her eyes snap wide open and slowly dip sideways to the contempt-filled face staring at her. “Eyes on me,” he orders in a low voice, and for a second she thinks that this is it, he’s going to do it, he’s going to kill her. She feels herself beginning to hyperventilate.

Then. Rudy smiles and backs off. 

He’s watching her in some sort of focused contemplation, the same way her biology professor would look at microbes in his growing microbial culture.

“Ah, I get it. This is all moving a bit too fast for you, isn’t it?” he says and nods his head in some fake understanding. “Didn’t even properly wine and dine you before taking you to bed. I’m sorry. To be fair, I’m not used to this either.” He shrugs sheepishly. “I really have to remember you’re not the usual garden-variety whore I normally bring home— fine ladies deserve to be treated finely, right?” he asks and runs the back of his knife over her cheek, chuckling when she whimpers. 

“Shhh, it’s ok, you just wait here. I’ll be right back,” he promises when she cringes away. 

He puts the knife down and disappears from her vision. The doors open, then slam closed, but she doesn’t look. 

Maybe, she thinks deliriously, she can trickle down, just melt into the floor below, and then fly away, far away from here, and when she gets out, she’ll apologize to her mom for that fight and call her brother who she hasn’t spoken to in so long and maybe she can learn how to cook the way she always wanted—

Her thoughts get cut off by her own loud sobbing. Her nose is clogging up, and her eyes feel puffy and inflamed. She hears the doors open again, and her heart starts pounding away in dreadful anticipation. Rudy struts up to her, momentarily grimacing as he takes a look at her ruined state, mumbling something that sounds like, “Wow, what an ugly face,” before smiling at her. 

“Cheers,” he says and promptly tips a glass of wine into her gasping mouth. 

The sensation is startling and she chokes on the bitter taste, the back of her throat and nose burning as she splutters and loudly gags. The liquid dribbles down her chin in the most uncomfortable way as she wheezes and coughs, her head thrashing left and right, somehow trying to find a way to expel the rest of the alcohol without choking herself or clogging her airway. Her lungs burn when she accidentally inhales and immediately starts hacking, wetly rasping into her shoulder, trying to turn her head to the side so she doesn’t suffocate. 

“Aw, what the fuck?” the disappointed voice cuts into her, and she struggles to squint at her captor, fear momentarily forcing the torturous stinging to the side as she tries to stop wheezing. “That’s Château Latour, you stupid bitch, don’t spill it,” he hisses. “Do you even know how expensive that was?” he asks, and for a second she is stunned into silence, the moment surreal, as he scolds her like a disobedient dog. She swallows and distantly thinks she can taste chocolate at the back of her throat. “You’re really ungrateful, aren’t you?” he says, and while his tone implies anger, his eyes are the same blank canvas they had been since he walked in. 

He’s toying with her, she realizes in a horrified triumph. She can use this, play his game, and—

“I don’t think my mother would have liked a spoilt girl like you,” he tells her, and before she can say anything at all, there is a high-pitched sound, and in his hand there is a live circular saw, spinning fast and deadly, and her brain short-circuits at the sight. 

When the saw makes its way to her knee, she’s already screaming, sharp and loud, the ringing in her ears head-splitting.

“No! Please, Rudy!” she manages before the metal cuts into her skin, and her vision whites out.

She’s hot and then cold, and she finds herself on that freefall ride again, strapped into the seat, her feet dangling in the air, and below her, the terrifying nothingness. She sees the blood-red sunset on the horizon, feels the wind in her hair— and drops.

He has always wondered,

How it feels to be Something

Instead of Nothing.

How it feels to eat and be satiated

Instead of hungry.

How it feels to breathe and live

Instead of being dead.

He thinks he might be able to know now.

He is staring at his computer screen when a hand waves in front of his face. Awareness snaps back into him all at once, and he looks up to see his sister frowning at him, little wrinkles nestled in between her brows.

“Hellooo? Earth to Dexter,” she says. “What’s wrong with you? I’ve called you, like, a billion fucking times,” she complains, perplexed. It’s not like he can blame her— he really is out of it today. 

“Oh. Sorry, it’s nothing.” He smiles, trying to reassure her. “It’s just…Monday,” he says lamely, and Debra scoffs. 

“Yeah, like that has ever bothered you before,” she says and squints at him suspiciously. “You’re not getting sick, are you?” she asks and puts a hand to his forehead, concerned. After a few moments of fussing over him as he tries in vain to duck away, she reluctantly concedes and crosses her arms disapprovingly. 

“You don’t feel warm,” she says slowly, and Dexter shakes his head. 

“Don’t worry, I guess it’s just a slow day for me. Nothing to worry about.”

“… It looked like you were miles away. What were you thinking about?”

Soft lips, and hands gripping his shirt, a quiet exhale next to his cheek, and teeth on his neck, and the bubbling, buzzing, electrifying—  

He takes a breath, lightly purses his lips, and shrugs apologetically. “You know. Just…stuff. What I’m having for dinner.” 

“Right,” she drags out the “i”, letting him know just how full of shit she thinks he is. “Keep it to yourself then. Just make sure that dinner isn’t going to get you a slap on the wrist,” she says meaningfully, and he childishly rolls his eyes at her. She saunters away, huffing in amusement, and he runs his tongue over his teeth. “He really needs to get it together,” he thinks as he rubs his eyes tiredly. 

Ten minutes until he can clock out.

His phone buzzes, and he grabs it lightning quick, only to find himself frowning at the name written on the screen. 

It’s Rita and Dexter only hesitates for a second, pondering the strange disappointment bobbing inside his ribcage, before he opens the message.

[Can you come over? We need to talk.]

He feels his eyebrows hit his hairline. 

Well , that doesn’t sound encouraging. Granted, he left her in the dust quite abruptly that afternoon, but she did receive an explanation, no matter how short it was, so he wonders how irritated she really is and whether or not he can still fix things. He frowns. If she breaks up with him, he’ll lose his cover— a thought that, strangely, doesn’t bother him as much as it should. 

[I’ll stop by after work.]     

The minutes tick by so slowly that by the time his shift ends, he is ready to pull his hair out. As quickly as he’s able, he packs up, gets in his car, and drives. The roads are emptier than usual, and he’s happy to note he arrives at Rita’s in record time. 

He doesn’t even fully get out of his car when the front door opens and his girlfriend walks out, her face still and statue-like. She stops a distance away like there is some invisible line she doesn’t want to cross. 

He has enough sense to respect that line, so he stays out of reach, standing only close enough to talk. 

“Hey,” he greets, hesitatingly. The silence is long enough to be felt before Rita asks, “Where were you this weekend?”

And immediately, somehow, he knows that she knows. 

“Rita…I—” 

“Because I know for a fact that nothing major happened on any of your cases. I spoke to Debra, Dexter.”

The words come out in a rush like she can’t hold them back any longer, and her breathing stutters before she visibly swallows it down in order to soldier on with her head held high. Despite the light wobble in her chin her eyes look determined, the usual baby blues melting into steely grey in her sorrow.   

“Can I…ask you something?” she says quietly.

“…Yes.”

“Did you cheat on me?” 

He marvels at how steady her voice is. Her eyes flicker to his neck, and for a moment he tenses before he remembers that there is nothing to see because he put some cheap concealer over the fading bruise just this morning. Yet, the way her eyes darken, makes him think she somehow knows anyway.  

“I didn’t sleep with anyone,” he tells her. It’s not a lie either.

“Cheating isn’t just sex,” she says after a moment and when he stays quiet, not knowing how to proceed without outright lying, her eyes close in what almost looks like pain. When she opens them, there is none of the hate that he expected. Instead, she just seems... 

She moves closer to him— one step, two— until she stands right in front of him. 

“I…want to ask something else,” she says, and before he has the time to formulate an answer she goes on to ask, very seriously, “Are you gay?”  

The question surprises him, and for a time he has no answer other than to simply stare at her. He goes to say “No, of course not,” but then the image of Rudy crashes to the forefront of his brain, and his response dies in the form of a strangled noise.

Rita lets out a breath that sounds a bit like an amused laugh with an aftertaste of sorrow, and he doesn’t know what to make of it until she slowly lifts her hand to gently brush at his cheek. When she smiles it is like a lone daisy in the empty fields after a hurricane. 

“You know, I…I always knew something wasn’t quite— you know. The way you never even hinted at intimacy and just, the way you sometimes looked relieved when…” 

She huffs out a laugh that is more her trying to catch her breath than an actual sign of merriment. 

“You’re such a wonderful man, Dexter. Such a wonderful man. And I’m not, not angry or anything, I just—” She struggles to breathe evenly. “I’m just sad that the future I imagined, the future I would have liked— I won’t be able to spend it with you.” 

She says it with such finality that Dexter doesn’t dare oppose her. This is the end of them; the last time they stand together like this. He knows it now just as clearly as she does, and instead of raging, she is smiling, small and sad, but firm and strong, and in this moment, in his eyes, she looks like a queen. 

For a second, time stands still and the image of her imprints itself into his brain, then she lets her hand fall from his face and promptly bursts into tears. 

Dexter doesn’t know what to do, but when he wraps his hands around her sobbing frame and she doesn’t shrug him off, he feels like he has caught a butterfly— the prettiest one in all the world and just a small squeeze will crush its wings. So, he holds her lightly and when he hears himself telling her he’s sorry, “I’m sorry Rita ,” he finds that he really, truly means it.

He wonders what his future might be like without her.