Roadkill

by autumnwish

Summary:

Brian goes on the run and takes Debra with him. Nobody is happy with the situation.

 

(Summary to be updated)

Chapter 1: Knock off Barbie

Brian pulls off the road as the car slowly rolls to a stop, cursing under his breath and thumping the steering wheel. He turns the key again and tries to rev the engine. Black smoke starts curling up on the other side of the windshield.

“Why are we stopping?” Deb asks drowsily from the passenger seat. She blinks sleep from her eyes as he climbs out and opens the hood of the car. It’s still the middle of the night – he only stops and puts her in the trunk when they’re driving in the daytime. It hasn’t gone unnoticed by her that they’re now almost exclusively travelling by night. Last time, she’d had to beg him not to stuff her back in the small space in the back of Lorraine’s car. Debra had never considered herself claustrophobic before, but that was starting to change.

Outside, she hears his voice growing louder in frustration. The car rocks as he kicks it.

She stretches her arms above her head and rolls her neck around, muscles sore from sleeping against the car door. A few days ago (when she thinks they might have been in Missouri) he managed to get his hands on some valium. Debra knows she should stop taking it when he offers, but given that her other choice is duct tape and the trunk she always accepts it.

The red ribbon around her throat has been itching her lately, and she reaches up to scratch at it idly. The bruises have faded. The memory of the telephone cord that he’d choked her with hasn’t. Once she heard a phone ringing through the thin walls of a motel room and flinched so violently it woke Brian up. He’d laughed and pulled her closer, tucked her head under his chin.

Debra thinks she’s figured him out now. Every gesture of affection, every soft kiss he places on her skin (but not her lips, never her lips) in the darkness, every time she catches him looking at her, it’s like— It’s like he’s Rudy again. She thinks he does it on purpose. It’s a calculated move when he touches up her nail polish, or when he brushes her hair, or runs his hands over her thighs. In her mind, the hard lines between Rudy and Brian begin to blur and it makes her sick.

What parts of him are real?

She isn’t sure.

With the muscles in her legs complaining after hours of disuse and still heavy from the drugs, Deb climbs out of the car with great effort.

Brian doesn’t even look up at her, instead trying to fan smoke away from his face. If she runs from him now, he’ll catch her easily.

There’s nothing around for miles.

“Where in the actual fuck are we?” Debra stumbles over to him in the red heels he bought for her, running through the mental map she’s been keeping. Her map must be off, because to her knowledge there aren’t any fucking deserts in Iowa. It’s not a surprise. She hardly even knows what day it is. It’s been at least two weeks since she first climbed onto the boat, and they’ve missed Christmas – she thinks. Her sleep is disturbed, her time spent in the trunk stretches the days out twice as long and the valium steals away precious hours of her life like a thief in the night.

“That’s none of your business,” Brian heads to the back of the car and retrieves the heavy duffel bag full of their things. He opens the hood with one hand. “Would you get back in the car? I’m going to fix—”

The engine ignites with a burst of orange and a wave of heat.

Deb staggers backwards in surprise. The heel of her shoe catches in a pothole and the barely paved road knocks the breath out of her. Brian leaps aside as the sleeve of his shirt catches alight. He tears it off and stamps it out, but not before the flame kisses and burns his forearm.

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck,” He waves his arm around, grinding his teeth together. Deb coughs and struggles to sit up, eyelids drooping. She lets herself lie back down for a moment and closes her eyes. Stay alert. Stay awake. You have to…

Still cursing, Brian inspects his wound closely. Nothing worse than a second degree burn, luckily. The last thing he needs is to have to give himself skin grafts.

The moon laughs down at him and his predicament. Stranded in the desert with a fiancee he abducted, his only ride is a stolen car that’s on fire. One day he’s going to find the cosmic force that orchestrated this and kill it.

“Deb, come here please.” It comes out hoarse from the smoke. Deb lies on her back a few feet away, motionless. There’s a hint of alarm in his tone when he calls again. “Debra!”

She covers her face with her hands and ignores him.

“Do not test me!” His voice is louder, harsher this time, and it gets carried away into the vast expanse of nothing.

Debra yanks off her heels and starts struggling to her feet.

Meanwhile, he fishes out a plastic water bottle and starts slowly pouring the contents onto his burn. The stinging subsides, and he sighs at the momentary relief. It’s going to hurt like a bitch until they reach civilization – which according to his map (left in the glove compartment of the burning vehicle), is further than he wants it to be.

A red arc catches his eye as it cuts through the black backdrop of smoke and he watches it end in the fiery depths of Lorraine’s car. Debra reaches him in the time it takes for him to realise they were her shoes.

He stares at her in disbelief whilst she retrieves her flip flops from the bag and slips them on.

“I got bored of playing dress up,” She grumbles at him.

He decides not to entertain the flash of white-hot anger that shoots through his stomach at her rejection of the shoes. He’ll deal with it later.

Recently, he’s found a few positives to keeping Debra around. One of them is picking out clothes for her. She hates it, he knows, but there’s a sick sense of satisfaction when she starts dressing herself anyway. Even though it’s the clothes he gives her or nothing, Brian takes a sort of pleasure in knowing that she’s choosing him. She wears the clothes he decides on, and he watches her dress for the evening ride intently, as if he’s committing her body to memory. The contours of her back and shoulder blades as she tugs on a t-shirt, the tautness in her legs and ass as she steps into a denim skirt, the pink flush that spreads like ink (or spilt blood) across the back of her neck when she realises he’s studying her. It makes him want to get another sketchbook and start immortalising her body in careful charcoal strokes.

Brian prefers her in red. Ever since he put that ribbon around her neck (he would tie it around all of her limbs if only she’d let him) he’s been fascinated by how the colour looks against her skin, and how she hardly ever chose it for herself before. He wanted to get her a dress to match the heels. Not that she could wear it out anywhere, but it would be worth it to see her all dressed up. All dressed up for him.

His favourite part about keeping Debra is getting to treat her like a doll.

He’s always loved playing with dolls. Even before he was damaged. One Christmas his mother bought him a doll. Not a Barbie, a cheap knock off, but she was perfect anyway. She came with two outfits, he remembers, and every day he would wake up and carefully change her dress over, press her plastic feet into her tiny heels and brush her hair. She had pride of place on his and Dexter’s dresser, right next to Dexter’s favourite toy car (a convertible, like the one Dad had) and even Dexter knew to be careful with her. Brian never played with her like he did his other toys. She just sat there, her pink lips stretched into a happy grin as she watched over them with wide unblinking eyes.

Mom had found it amusing. She used to pretend to kiss the doll goodnight as she tucked him in, before bending down to kiss his forehead. He remembers how soft her hair felt as it brushed against his cheek, how he used to touch it so carefully, because she was more precious than his doll could ever be.

Then Dad found it. Started yelling something about ‘fucking sissy’... ‘no son of mine’ … ‘not under my roof’ and staggering around with blood shot eyes and smelling strongly of something Brian didn’t know the name of then. It was one of the last times he saw his father, as his arrest would occur only a few days later.

What a shame, that one of his last memories of Dad is of his pretty doll’s head being snapped off in Dad’s fist and the everlasting resentment that was born of it. He used to love his father, before he disappeared – Harry Morgan’s fault, of course. Dad could carry both Brian and Dexter on a shoulder each, or under an arm, or fit them both in his lap, and felt solid and strong. But those fleeting memories weren’t enough to combat the deadly concoction of abandonment and betrayal that Brian fostered every second in that hospital knowing he was fading from the thoughts of the only people who ever loved him. Eventually, love became indifference. And indifference wasn’t enough to save Joe Driscoll when he was standing between Brian and Dexter.

Indifference. It should be what Dexter feels for Debra. His fake sister, following him around with big puppy dog eyes and no idea how bloody his hands were. Instead, Dexter is – what did he say? Oh yes – fond of her. And why? It’s a question that keeps him up at night. She makes his brother weak. Brian’s skin still crawls when he remembers Dexter’s advice: just tell her it’s all your fault. She’ll wear you down. The lion does not yield to the mouse.

But Dexter did, at least to her face. Brian remembers all that bullshit she spewed at their father’s house, about trust and family and how Dexter should ignore a homicide because Harry Morgan’s memory would be ruined. Even Rita was on Dexter’s side. It had taken everything in him not to kill her then, to refrain from injecting her with the insulin concealed on his person, or even dropping one of Joe Driscoll’s many, many bowling balls on her head whilst she slept.

It’s an unnaturally human thing for his brother to do. There are no positives for Dexter in keeping Debra around. He won’t confide in her, can’t confide in her. She does not alleviate him from the mundane parts of existence – she is not convenient. There is rarely anything that Debra knows that Dexter doesn’t, and so Brian can rule out that he uses her for information. He doesn’t fuck her. He certainly cannot love her.

Brian tries to ignore the part of him whispering that the very nature of his own relationship with Debra suggests he is looking at indifference in the rearview mirror.

Indifference will return once he’s reunited with Dexter, and she has served her purpose. Nothing else at all will matter then. In the meantime, Brian feels he can enjoy the power he holds over her whilst it lasts.

“I need you to help me,” He pulls out the leftover plastic wrap and a roll of duct tape from the bag, which he drops behind him. It’s got all his tools in, buried underneath their clothes. The way she steals glances at it makes him uneasy.

“Help you?” Debra’s face contorts in disgust. “Fuck you.”

Whatever he feels for her does not outweigh his urge to throw her into the fire. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it.

“Do you really think it’s a good idea to piss off a serial killer when you’re stuck with him in a place where there’s nobody for miles?”

She snatches the plastic wrap off of him and starts winding it around his forearm. There’s no tenderness to it: in fact Brian’s convinced she’s intent on causing him as much pain during the process as physically possible.

Debra opens her mouth to say something, but instead chooses to pull the plastic wrap tight enough to cut off his circulation. He uses his other hand to loosen it, and she bats him away.

“You’d be a terrible nur— ouch.”

“Stop moving,” She says, as if it was his fault she dug her nails into his wound. Clearly, the valium is wearing off. That’s okay, he needs her awake for a while.

He repacks the bag and shoulders it. Debra hasn’t moved from her spot, still standing close to him. Brian tilts his head to the side, wondering what she’s searching his face for. Whatever it is, she doesn’t find it, and feigns disinterest as she scans the landscape.

“What’s the plan now? Or was this not part of it, Mr Fucking Neat Freak?”

“We walk. In that direction,” He points, and places a hand on the small of her back to guide her ahead of him. “And don’t—”

“Even think about running off. How stupid do you think I am, fuckface?” Deb shakes him off and starts walking along the road, wrapping her arms around herself to stay warm as she gets further away from the heat of the fire.

And to think I was going to offer her a jacket. Brian smiles to himself as he follows her into the night.

Notes:

Thank you for reading, if you got this far! The writer's block was brutal for this one, but I've finally hit a good flow. That being said, if updates are irregular and inconsistent, it will probably be because I'm starting university soon and that's going to be a huge (albeit exciting) change.

Chapter 2: King Of The Dinosaurs

Summary:

Tensions rise as Brian and Deb stay stuck in the desert. Fortunately, a fellow traveller appears.

“Do we have any water?” Debra finally asks, tongue flicking over her dried and cracked lips as she calls to him over her shoulder.

Brian considers the half full bottle still in the bag.

“No,” he says.

“Fuck.” She kicks up a cloud of dust.

They’ve been walking for hours. The sun now floats peacefully above them, making their shadows small misshapen blobs beneath their feet.

“You have to call for help. We’re both going to die out here from fucking dehydration,” Debra tries to reason with him, but he shakes his head as casually as if rejecting her choice of restaurant.

“I don’t have a phone.”

“Fuck!” Debra kicks up a larger cloud of dust. Some of it blows in his direction.

“Would you stop that?”

“Oh and what the fuck are you going to do about it?”

Her aggression catches him off guard. His gaze darkens and his jaw clenches. Debra’s defiant expression falls away in an instant. She turns away from him and starts walking again.

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do about it.” Brian catches up with her quickly. The whole time, she’s stayed around two, three feet ahead of him, letting him keep her in his sights. His hand finds the back of her neck and squeezes firmly as he talks. “We’re going to keep walking. When a car comes past, I’m going to wave it down and take care of the driver. You’re going to keep your pretty mouth shut when I do, or I’ll cut out your tongue. Okay?”

“I’d rather die out here than let you kill another innocent person.”

“Another? What, because the people of Miami are mourning all those poor innocent sex workers?”

“What about Fred? And Lorraine? You killed them for their cars.” Debra shakes him off and stops walking.

Brian turns to face her with a sigh. “Those kills were necessary. If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t enjoy them as much as I normally—”

“What about the woman in Georgia? The one you stole that fucking silver top off and made me wear!”

“That was a mistake.”

Debra’s brow furrows in confusion.

“It didn’t suit you at all.” He continues.

She shrieks and shoves him in the chest as he chuckles. The littlest things upset her. It would be more amusing if he wasn’t the one to deal with her. Deb storms off in the direction they were headed.

“Deb? Deb! Come on, I’m joking.” He has to jog after her. “She wasn’t innocent. She killed her husband and I’m pretty sure she was on the run. If anything, I did the police a favour there.”

“How could I be so fucking stupid?” Debra buries her face in her hands. Brian rolls his eyes and falls into step beside her. “How could I have ever believed that you felt anything?”

“Stop beating yourself up. I’ve already told you, a lot of people have fallen for it,” He tries to use a soothing tone, but it doesn’t make much difference to her mood. He puts a hand on her head and strokes her hair. “The trick is to tell the truth.”

“Name one fucking true thing that you said to me. And not all that bullshit about my dad, just one true thing you said before what happened on the boat.” Deb angrily swipes tears from her cheeks, trying to stop them from coming. It doesn’t feel like her body has water to waste.

Brian hesitates; Deb takes it as an answer.

“At least I know. You don’t care about me. You never have,” She hisses. “And you know what else? I hope we die out here. I hope you die. ‘Cause it’s pretty fucking ironic that the meticulous ice truck killer dies in the desert because his plan relied on pure luck. You’ll be a laughing stock and then everyone will forget about you, even your stupid fucking brother!”

When she’s finished, she’s breathing heavily, hatred burning in her eyes like Lorraine’s car. In a way, Brian’s glad that she’s finally said her piece. Even if it makes something buried deep inside of him cry out in pain. Luckily, it’s only a very small something.

“Meticulous? That’s a big word, Deb.”

She punches him in the face.

As he’s still reeling, she turns and starts walking in the other direction. Walking faster. Running.

He doesn’t even bother going after her. Partly because civilization is somewhere between twenty to thirty hours away by foot, and partly because if he does he might bash her head in with a rock.

Brian sits down and takes small sips from the water bottle, careful to not use it all up.

Death. His death. What a ridiculous concept.

Additional theatrics aside, he must admit she’s got a point: it will take a miracle to get his plan back on track. The plan was so foolproof (however ‘luck’ based Debra thinks it is), that it had both a backup plan, and a backup of the backup plan. Unfortunately, all plans required making it through the desert unscathed.

Fortunately, he can hear the engine of his miracle in the distance.

A few minutes later, the car rolls to a stop beside him, a man with a red face and a concerned expression peering out the window at him. The silver glinting in the otherwise dark tangles of his hair tell Brian that the man is maybe ten years older than him. His skin looks weathered, teeth yellowed and crooked and his irises are so dark that they look like large pupils.

“What the hell are you doing all the way out here?” The stranger asks, as Brian climbs to his feet, faking a limp. The knife stays concealed in his pocket.

“My car caught alight. I’ve been walking for hours but I’ve hurt my – gah! – leg. My fiancee, she’s gone ahead to get help, but…” He grimaces convincingly, staggering to the car and leaning into the passenger window. “You don’t think you could give us a ride to the nearest town?”

“Why haven’t you called your car in?” The man frowns, subconsciously leaning away from him.

“We haven’t got a phone between us. We left home in a hurry. Her dad, he– uh, didn’t approve of us marrying, so we took his car and a bag full of our clothes and here we are.”

“Where you headed?”

“L.A. I’ve got family there.”

He uses Rudy’s smile to trap him. The easy, soft, you’ll-be-safe-with-me smile. The one that melted Deb like butter, and let him into her home, her bed, her heart.

The stranger’s eyes go distant, as if recalling something fondly. Then he smiles back. “You know what, you seem like a good fella. Toss your bag in the back with Junior and climb in.”

Brian freezes. The backseat has tinted windows, so he has to lean further into the car to look. Strapped in the back is a smiling blonde boy, no more than six years of age, chewing on the tail of a cuddly dinosaur.

Shit.

*******

I’m so fucked.

Deb stops running once she can no longer see him, putting both of her hands on her knees and doubling over. Her lungs hurt – she probably inhaled too much smoke from the car fire – and she wheezes into the dirt.

She forces herself to keep moving forward. There’s enough distance between them now to maintain a good speed walk, she thinks. As long as she keeps glancing over her shoulder, she can start running again when she sees him.

A bird of prey is circling overhead, carving up the blue sky with large wings. Thin wisps of clouds stretch across the horizon, lazily brushing the tops of distant mountains. A stone lodges itself in her shoe and she shakes it out, noting how dusty her clothes are. How dusty she is.

You’ve got to keep moving.

As soon as she sees another person, she can call the police, get herself somewhere safe. If she’s quick enough, they might even be able to form a perimeter around the area and catch Ru— Brian before he makes it out of the desert.

They’ll haul him back to Miami, stick him on death row and then it will be over.

Of course there will have to be a trial. And a media frenzy – fucking bloodhounds – and they’ll want to talk to her. Maybe if she asks nicely LaGuerta will deal with them.

She’ll have to give a statement to the police.

Standard procedure.

She’ll have to tell them what he’s done. Her hand flies to her neck, and when she brushes the red ribbon tied there her stomach contorts in on itself. Deb fumbles with the bow before pulling it off. It finally feels like she can breathe again.

She’ll have to tell them how nicely she takes the valium from him, how he dresses her up like she’s a fucking doll. How she sleeps, untied, in the passenger seat of the car.

But it’s not like she’s complicit, she reasons. Debra tried to escape. Tried to throw herself out of a motel window. Her throat constricts involuntarily when she remembers the consequences of that. Her fingers clawing at the telephone cord, gouging her own neck. Drumming her feet against the bed. His weight on her back, his hands pulling tighter, tighter. His voice in her ear muttering “Be quiet, Deb. Be quiet.”

She’ll have to tell them about that.

Debra doesn’t think she should mention Dexter’s voicemail. They might investigate him. He’s probably going through enough already. She can talk to him when she sees him again. It will make sense when he explains it. Things always do.

Does Dexter miss me?

She’s torn from her thoughts when a car horn blares behind her.

“Hey! Over here! Help!” Deb almost feels overwhelmed at the thought of rescue. Fucking finally.

The car slows down and she rushes towards it.

The man behind the wheel waves awkwardly at her as the passenger jumps out.

“You have to help—” She begins.

Brian cuts her off with a bone crushing hug. Knowing him, that might be the intention. Suddenly, Deb feels like he’s snatched the air back from her lungs. He holds her head against his shoulder, pressing her face down.

“I’m so sorry babe, I shouldn’t have said those things,” He speaks loudly for the benefit of the driver, putting all his years of pretending to be human into making himself sound as remorseful as possible.

“No, no no..” She moans into his shoulder, struggling to push him off.

He drops his head and kisses her temple and the shell of her ear, whispering: “Play along. Or they both die.”

His hand slips from her head to her neck. After what feels like forever, she nods slightly.

She has a better chance of protecting these people inside the car.

He helps her into the back seat, pretending to fuss over her. It’s disgusting how easily he can pretend.

Once Brian is settled in the front seat with their duffel bag on his lap, the car starts again.

“Debra, this is David. David, Debra: my fiancee. And that’s David Jr next to you.”

“Nice to meet you. Rudy here has just been telling me all about you. You’re far prettier in person,” David grins at her in the rearview mirror and she manages a small smile back. She lets the ribbon fall from her hands and kicks it under the seat in front. Evidence.

Brian is rummaging in the bag for something.

“Thank you. Cute kid,” Her voice wobbles as David Jr passes her his cuddly dinosaur toy, and she makes it roar softly at him.

“He loves dinosaurs. Tell her what the one is, Junior,” David Sr focuses on the road, not paying any more attention to the passengers. Deb is laser-focused on whatever Brian is doing inside the bag.

“Diplodocus,” The boy whispers. He takes his toy back, clearly dissatisfied with her dinosaur sounds and resumes gnawing at the tail. Deb subtly wipes her hand on her shorts.

“Wow, you really know your stuff. Is that your favourite dinosaur?” Brian turns around to address the kid, both hands tucked into the duffel bag.

Deb feels completely wired. She’s ready to jump forward and intercept any blade Brian might produce with her hands if she has to.

“No.”

“What’s your favourite dinosaur then?” Brian asks.

“Tyrannosaurus rex.”

“King of the dinosaurs. That’s my favourite too.”

David Jr lights up.

“Their teeth are this—” The boy holds his hands about eight inches apart “—big! And that’s the size of my– my whole head.”

“Wow. Have you ever seen the skeleton of a T-Rex?”

“Uh-huh! In– in the big museum. And did you know that it ate other dinosaurs too? Not just the little ones, the great big ones.”

“Be careful, Junior will talk your head off about dinosaurs. It’s just about the only thing he’ll talk about,” David Sr laughs as he warns them, but his tone is strained suddenly.

“That’s why the T.Rex is my favourite. Because he’s an endurance hunter. Do you know what that means?” Brian ignores David’s comment, and continues talking to the younger boy. He’s better conversation anyway. All David has done is interrogate him on how exactly the car engine ignited.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that it’s a clever predator. It can hunt its prey until the other animal is too tired to carry on, and won’t fight back. The T.Rex can chase its prey as far as it takes, for however long it takes,” Brian throws a wicked grin at Debra, one that makes her skin crawl. “Humans are endurance hunters too.”

“So we’re like T.Rexs?” Junior ponders for a moment, idly stuffing his cuddly diplodocus toy back in his mouth as he does so.

“Pretty cool, huh?”

Junior nods, mouth full of cuddly toy, and stares out of the window instead. Brian chuckles and turns back to the bag.

Of course he’s good with kids. It infuriates her. Sitting in a car with a predator, and being the only one knowing that the rest of them are prey. She rakes her fingers through her hair, feeling some strands come loose. She drops them into the footwell, presses them between the car seats.

“Junior, take that out of your mouth. I’m sorry, he can get a bit funny when somebody else knows more about dinosaurs than he does. He likes being the smartest person in the room,” David sighs.

“He seems fine to me,” Brian chews on the inside of his cheek and hopes Junior keeps chewing on the toy to spite his father.

The radio is playing some sort of Christmas jingle that’s driving him insane. What makes it undoubtedly worse is when Deb starts tapping her fingernails on the window, clearly off beat. He tries to ignore it.

Finally, the song changes. The tapping stops. The next one starts and Deb resumes her off-beat rhythm.

“What do you do for a living?” David asks.

“I’m an artist,” It’s not a lie. “And Deb’s just left her job. Couldn’t stand being stuck behind a desk all day, could you babe?”

“No. I couldn’t.” Debra’s a bad liar. Her voice is jilted, laced with irritation.

“It’s a bit of a sore subject,” Brian covers for her, shooting her a sharp look. She joins Junior in staring out the window. Still tapping. Tap tap tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap tap tap. He wants to cut her fingers off. Maybe he will.

“What are you hoping to do now, Debra?” David asks politely.

Brian answers for her. “Actually, she’s mentioned a couple of times that she’d quite like to stay at home once we’re married. It’s looking like I’m going to have to be the one who gets the desk job.”

“Trust me, it’s better off that way. That’s how it’s meant to be. No offense to your job, or art, or anything, but it’s a man’s job to provide for his family. If your wife is earning more than you, then that just throws off the whole dynamic,” David huffs and shakes his head. “You just get yourselves a nice house, good kitchen for the lady, and you’ll be just fine. Nothing better than getting home after a long day and knowing there’s a cozy home and a good woman waiting in it.”

“We’ll have to take your advice – you certainly seem to know what you’re talking about. Are you married?” Brian hopes that David can’t see Debra rolling her eyes in the back.

“Do you want any kids?” David ignores the question, staring glassy-eyed at the road ahead.

“I’m not too bothered. Deb wants kids. If she has it her way we’ll have a whole soccer team running around in the yard,” He stays it to piss her off, straining his neck to watch her lips press together in a thin line, her nostrils flaring. It’s too easy.

But she doesn’t say anything. Continues tapping. Tap tap tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap tap tap.

It’s a deliberate rhythm. Brian realises with a frown. Three quick taps, three slower taps, three more quick taps.

It hits him like a hammer. Not slower taps, longer taps. It’s morse code.

Three dots. S
Three dashes. O
Three dots. S

He’s got to do something.

“Deb, do you want some water?” And that’s what cracks her nonchalant facade.

“You son of a—”

David coughs loudly and Debra cuts herself off in time as she rips the bottle from Brian’s hand. She gulps it down, pausing only to sigh in relief and wipe her mouth.

“Thirsty?” David laughs.

“You have no fu– fudging idea,” She responds, trying to murder Brian with a look. He bats his eyelashes at her.

“Pass it back,” He tells her.

Out of spite, she downs the rest of it. Good.

She drank it too fast to taste the pills dissolved in it.

Notes:

Thank you for reading! Might be a little ooc, but 24000 words into a series I think I can start calling it development.

Chapter 3: Roadkill

Summary:

Brian is faced with an ethical dilemma.

He can’t kill that kid.

This is something that Brian has only recently learnt about himself. It’s very inconvenient.

When he was younger, he thought he could kill a kid. Somebody his own age. In the group homes, in the hospital, he wanted to kill the children there. When did that change?

Teenagers are fair game, he thinks. They know what’s going on. One of his favourite parts of a kill is that moment where it clicks for his victims. When they know, without a shadow of a doubt, that death is here for them. Of course, he enjoys a lot about what he does, but that moment really does elevate the experience.

But a child? A little child?

He thinks about this as he watches Junior napping in his car seat, diplodocus stuffie held tightly against him. Deb sleeps just as deeply beside him, unbothered by the bumps in the road.

They’ve been driving for two hours now. David has told him all the relevant information about his life, and in return Brian has fabricated a love story for the ages between him and Deb to pass the time. It’s a pity she wasn’t awake to hear it – she might have enjoyed it.

Now, he and David sit listening to the radio, one drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and humming along to the music, one thinking about murdering babies.

Is it a moral thing? Would he feel guilty if he did? Brian isn’t sure what ‘guilty’ feels like (sadness, perhaps? A bit of anger, maybe some disappointment?) and chooses not to pursue that line of thought further.

But no matter which angle he looks at it, he draws the same conclusion: Junior must live.

There was no way to decline David, especially not when Debra was further down the road, waiting to turn him in. It was already a big enough gamble that a car wouldn’t come from the other direction. So he had no choice but to climb into the car.

Brian has two options. Neither of them are air tight.

Option 1: He murders David Sr.

It’s very easy to imagine. There’s so many ways to do it. Then he puts the body in the trunk and drives on. Or he could waste time burying it a little way off the road and hope nobody passes through too often. The problem with option one is what to do with the kid.

A six year old understands who his parents are. He understands when things are wrong. Even if Brian leaves Junior in the car with the windows down the second they reach town, the boy could still provide a reliable description of them to the police when he’s found. He cannot be released. That would make two hostages Brian has to travel with and he can’t kill either of them. They could leave the boy in the desert, to fend for himself. Although he wouldn’t survive very long, and Brian would be back at square one.

If Junior was only a little younger, there’s a chance that things work out. If he was closer in age to Dexter when their mother died, and not Brian, then he might black it out. They could drop him at a convenience store and hope for the best. Far too risky.

That leaves only one viable course of action.

Option 2: Spare David and Junior’s lives.

How merciful of him. Maybe it’s Deb’s good influence.

“What are you smiling about?” David asks.

“Just thinking to myself.”

“Care to share?”

No. Not at all.

“I was just thinking about Deb. And children.”

“That whole soccer team you’re going to have?” David laughs.

“Like I said, only if she gets her way.”

“Trust me, she will. They always do. My wife is the exact same way.”

“I didn’t think you were married?”

“I’m… not. Not anymore.” David takes a deep breath, tightens his knuckles on the steering wheel. “She died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s been difficult. For Junior. He stopped talking for months. Even now, he’s quieter than he used to be. Only talks about those goddamn dinosaurs. We’re uh– We’re going to my sister’s. She’s going to look after him. A boy needs a mother. My– my own mother died when I was twelve and my old man raised me. I hated him. You know how fathers are—”

“I don’t.”

“Well, mine was a mean old bastard. Happiest day of my life was the day I finally told him that I was leaving. I don’t want Junior to feel the same way about me. My sister and her husband are real nice people, good people. They’ll look after him better than I can.”

They fall into silence. Brian wonders if it’s rude to turn the radio up.

David starts up again. “What do you mean, you don’t know anything about fathers? You don’t have one?”

“No. Yes. I meant–” He curses himself internally. “My father abandoned me after my mother died.”

“And?”

I killed him and made it look like a heart attack.

“I never forgave him for it. If you don’t want your son to hate you, maybe try – I don’t know – being there.”

David turns the radio off, frowning deeply. “You remind me of how I was when I was young, Rudy.”

“How so?” He finds it vaguely amusing when people do this. Projecting. Brian’s willing to bet his left hand that David won’t be able to draw a single true comparison between the two of them.

“You’ve got a wild side to you. Don’t like other people telling you what to do – like her daddy telling you not to get hitched – so you do it anyway. But here you are, talking about getting a job, settling down… You’re wiser than I was.”

Great. The old guy’s getting sentimental.

“But—” David continues “—you gotta be sure that’s what you want. I don’t regret getting married; I don’t regret having Junior. What I do regret is not doing right by my family, all ‘cause I wanted to chase a dream. You got a lot of dreams, Rudy?”

“A couple,” He responds, scratching his jaw, losing interest in the conversation.

“And do they involve sleeping beauty back there?”

Only so far as her death.

“Sort of.” Brian fishes a granola bar out of his bag and starts eating it.

“Once you’re married, all your dreams oughta include her, or you’ll only wind up hurting her.”

Good.

“Thanks for the advice,” He bites his cheek, frustrated with how the old man insists on passing on his perceived wisdom. There’s a seed from the granola bar stuck between his teeth, and he misses what David says next as he tries to dislodge it. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“I said, that doesn’t seem like it will be a problem for you. You’re clearly obsessed with her,” David remarks.

The look of utter disbelief on Brian’s face only flashes up for a moment before he regains composure. He shrugs, and smirks when he says: “Yeah. I love her to pieces.”

“I’m sure you don’t really appreciate me telling you how to live your life. Like I said before, you seem like a good fella. But Rudy,” David suddenly grows serious again, “If you try and tell me what’s best for my son again, I’ll knock your fucking teeth down your throat.”

“Oh. Noted.”

And with that, David is done talking. Junior sighs softly in his sleep and moves his head slightly. Deb doesn’t stir. Brian hopes he hasn’t accidentally killed her. That would be an awkward situation to explain away. For once, he doesn’t want her dead.

If Deb dies in the backseat, then he’ll have to take his chances with killing David and abandoning Junior.

Poor kid.

He doesn’t know these people. He shouldn’t get involved. But he knows what it feels like to be abandoned by your family.

“You love him a lot,” Brian begins, putting half of his granola bar back into the bag to save for later. “And although I’m very fond of my teeth, I’ve gotta say—”

David slams on the brakes as something furry rushes into the road. He jerks the wheel back and forth, the animal disappearing under the car. There’s a soft thump that wakes Junior.

Brian cranes his neck to look through the back window. The rabbit (hare?) lies twitching on the roadside. As he watches, it twists and contorts, staggers to its feet and crumples again.

“Don’t worry, it’s still alive.” He tells David.

“It is?” David looks in his mirror.

Then slams the car into reverse and backs over it.

This time, Brian thinks he can hear bones breaking beneath the weight of the car.

Calmly, David resumes the journey.

“You were saying something, Rudy?”

“No. No, I wasn’t.”

“Smart choice.”

In his experience, people can get quite upset about hitting animals on the road. Even his little brother – a serial killer – swerved to avoid a baby deer resulting in an accident that delayed his arrival at their mother’s house. If it wasn’t for that damn deer, he wouldn’t even be in this car with David in the first place. David, whose ‘wild side’ as he may call it, seems to have risen its head.

Brian will always be fascinated by little acts of violence.

Pulling pigtails on the playground. Throwing stones at seagulls. Getting drunk and picking fights. Those small moments where the mask slips, and people who are otherwise normal, boring, show their cruel side to the world. That’s wrong, they learn (or don’t, sometimes they never learn) and so they look for opportunities when they’re allowed to give in.

The same people who recoil in disgust at monsters like him would reverse over roadkill without hesitation.

“Why?” It slips out without a fully formed thought behind it. Brian scrambles to justify it. “Why’d you do that?”

David shoots him a confused look. “What do you mean?”

“It was alive. You didn’t need to do that.”

“That was mercy. What, you would have let it suffer?”

Brian pulls a face. His arm stings where he was burnt in the fire and he wonders if David has pain killers in his car. Mercy. Mercy. Mercy.

If ending a life was mercy then he’s a fucking saint.

“Didn’t take you for such a softie there, Rudes. Can I call you Rudes?”

“You cannot. And you got me: I have a soft spot for animals,” He lies, picking at the plastic wrap on his arm. “I just wasn’t expecting you to do that.”

“I don’t do it because I like it, you know. Don’t go thinking I’m some psycho who runs down fluffy little bunny rabbits, or whatever that thing was, ‘cause that’s not me. But it’s the right thing to do, given the situation.”

It doesn’t make sense to Brian. He has crossed so far over the line of right and wrong he cannot even begin to see where it is drawn.

He looks over his shoulder at Deb, still out cold in the backseat. If only she were awake, she might have something to say about this idea of necessary killing that David talks about. He should ask her, once they’re alone.

She’s fascinating in that regard. Frustrating, too. Before she knew the truth about him, late at night in her apartment, she would talk about her cases with him. Threw around the words ‘sicko’ and ‘psycho’ and ‘fucked up’ a lot. Deb knows right from wrong and is adamant that everybody else should abide by the same moral code she follows. Maybe they do have something in common: they both think the world would be a better place if everybody thinks like they do.

He remembers how upset she got with him about his own necessary kills. Fred, Lorraine, Rudy Cooper. Would people like David understand that? Maybe Debra is the anomaly here. It wouldn’t surprise him.

Necessary killing. The real person he should talk to about that is Dexter. Dexter and his code. Unfortunately, Debra will have to suffice.

Brian watches carefully for the shallow rise and fall of her chest, letting him know she’s still with him. Her hands rest in her lap, her engagement ring glinting in the light that slants through the car windows.

I’m not obsessed with her. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

“You’re going to hurt your neck if you keep staring at her,” David notes. “Trust me buddy, she’s not going anywhere.”

“I know,” He smiles.

‘All I want for Christmas is you’ starts playing on the radio. David turns it up.

“How long till we get there?” Brian pictures his hands around David’s throat.

“Hard to say. Conditions stay good, I’d say another hour and a half.”

It’s starting to feel like a very long car journey.

Notes:

Thank you for reading! A little bit of a filler chapter - sorry! but hopefully it all makes sense in the long run. I also just love giving my side characters lore. Feedback is always appreciated x

And don't worry, there's some good stuff to come (if I do say so myself).

Chapter 4: Achilles

Summary:

Brian hasn't forgiven her for running off.

Notes:

Buckle up. This one got darker than I thought it would.

She wakes up to the sound of running water. It cuts through the darkness, the nothingness, bringing her crashing back down to earth.

The next moment it’s hitting her bare legs.

Although the water is warm, she tries to move away from it, head spinning. It’s so white. Why is it so white?

“Relax. I’m just rinsing you off,” Brian tells her, tightening his arm around her waist. He guides the shower head over her legs, watching the remains of their desert trek disappear down the drain.

Her limbs feel heavy; her head’s definitely been cut open and stuffed with cotton wool. She’s practically limp against him, his arm the only thing holding her up.

They’re sitting on the floor of a bathroom, Deb half in the shower and Brian just outside it. She doesn’t know when they got there. She’s still hazy on how they got there.

He sets the detachable head down and turns it off at the wall, before wrapping his free arm across the front of her chest.

“How are you feeling?” He asks.

Her eyes are screwed up against the brightness of the bathroom, the harsh light bouncing off the white tiling. She mumbles something that sounds like “fucked up”.

“I didn’t want to knock you out like that, Deb. You gave me no other choice.” He reaches for a towel and starts patting her legs dry. “I was saving those pills for a special occasion.”

“Not.. fucking… valium.”

“No, they weren’t. I’ll admit you almost got me there. Luckily, our companions didn’t know morse code.”

She groans as he turns her around in his arms, stands up and tries to set her on her feet. Deb’s knees buckle immediately, and he manages to catch her with a small chuckle.

“Almost!” He bends his knees and slings her over his shoulder. Her hands scrabble for purchase along his back as he carries her through to the other room. “Those drugs really did a number on you. I’ll have to be more careful next time.”

Brian drops her unceremoniously on the bed, knocking the air out of her. There’s no lights on in the motel room. The curtains are drawn, but she thinks it’s late in the evening. The remaining dregs of sunlight manage to filter through the flimsy fabric, bathing the room in an eerie red light as they try and avoid vanishing beyond the horizon.

The bed sheets are cheap and scratchy against her skin. She tries to roll onto her side but it’s too much effort… There’s something she needs to remember. What is it?

She can hear him humming something to himself as he walks around the room. It sounds suspiciously like a Christmas song.

Fuck. What is she forgetting?

Brian returns from doing whatever he’s doing, sitting on the edge of the bed next to her. He pouts in mock sympathy.

“Looks like we both survived our little excursion. Sorry to disappoint you.” He rests a hand on her hip, rubbing it up and down her side.

Deb notices that he’s changed into the softer clothes he sleeps in. His hair is damp and tousled. He doesn’t look like a monster. He looks like Rudy. Her soft, gentle, clever boyfriend. Her boyfriend, who wanted to marry her and spend the rest of his life with her. Who made her feel loved in ways she’d never felt before.

Her mouth opens to betray her thoughts to him when he sighs and starts pulling her t-shirt off.

Brian. The man who hates her guts. The man who drugs her food and wraps his hands around her throat to silence her. The man who wants her dead.

She cannot let herself mistake the two.

Her fingers grasp at the fabric of the shirt as he pulls it over her head and discards it on the floor. She tries to kick at him when his hands find her shorts, but only manages to bump her knee against his arm.

“Your clothes are dirty, Deb. They need washing,” Brian reasons as he tugs her shorts down to her knees. She keeps squirming. “I don't want to hurt you.”

“Liar.” Deb breathes.

He laughs and tosses her shorts over his shoulder. “You keep accusing me of that. It’s getting old.”

God, she wants to hit him.

I already fucking did.

It comes rushing back in disjointed pieces. Running through the desert, the car, the boy with the dinosaur.

“Did you hurt him?” She grumbles as he snakes his hand behind her back to unclasp her bra. He has to lean over her to do it, and when she questions him he freezes in place.

“Who?”

“Fucking dippy the dinosaur boy.”

Brian leans in closer to her, holding his face above her own.

“What do you think I did?”

Deb hesitates. He brushes her hair away from her forehead, watching her expression. First, her brows draw closer and her eyes narrow – she’s wondering if it’s a trick. Then her gaze softens and the corners of her mouth twitch. Now she thinks he’s spared them. But finally, her lips form the slightest pout, her eyes go shiny and she shrinks away from him. She’s decided he’s killed them.

It’s a masterclass in human emotion for him. In the time they dated, he learnt so quickly with her. After no time at all, he no longer had to solely rely on the cliche lines, his carefully rehearsed speeches and tactical romantic gestures. Just by mirroring her micro-expressions, he learnt to pull her this way, that way, wind her around his finger.

Naturally, this manipulation was aided by a good dose of heavy petting, but it was certainly a strong aspect of it.

He wonders if you can trick somebody the same way twice.

“Maybe I had no other choice but to kill them,” Brian pulls away, and twists her arms around until he can pull off her bra too. She folds her arms over her chest, pointedly looking away from him.

“Somehow I really fucking doubt that.”

He leaves her sulking there, turning to rummage through the duffel bag.

“Sometimes killing is mercy. Ever thought about that?” He finds his roll of red ribbon nestled in the bottom. The absence of the ribbon around her throat hadn’t gone unnoticed. Brian assumes it’s somewhere in the desert.

Deb is quiet for a long time as he keeps reorganising the bag. He’s starting to think she’s fallen asleep when she speaks.

“Not the way you do it,” She manages to roll herself onto her side, turning her back to him. He lets his eyes scan her form, before picking up her flip flops from where he’d abandoned them on the floor. They get stuffed in the trashcan, and he arranges the packaging of his takeaway to hide them from view. Brian hasn’t forgiven her for burning the red shoes.

“How would you do it, then? If I’m such a monster, Deb, then how would you kill somebody?” He takes a roll of duct tape out of the bag, studies how much is left on the roll, and reaches for a second. “Put a pillow over their head? Poison in their coffee?”

“Fuck off.”

“You’re right. You bleed too blue for that. You’d put a bullet in their head.”

“I wouldn’t. Not– not a kid.” Brian watches her flop onto her stomach and try to push herself up. She gives up and lets herself fall facedown on the bed.

“Would you shoot me? Would you show me mercy? Or would you aim for my legs and let the justice system run its course, hm?”

Deb grabs a pillow and yanks it down over her head and ears.

He sighs, selects a fillet knife from his tools, collects the rolls of duct tape and ribbon, and crosses the room in two steps. He dumps everything on the nightstand. Debra flinches at the sound of the knife hitting the wood, and again when she feels his hands on her hips.

“Don’t—” Deb protests as he flips her over almost effortlessly, snatching the pillow from her grasp and pinning her wrists either side of her head. Brian lets his weight press her into the mattress as he lies on top of her, ignoring her feeble attempts to buck him off.

“Would you even take the shot?” He whispers into her ear. As he pulls back to look at her, she turns her head to face him. His eyes flicker to her lips, so close he can feel her breath on his skin. Brian can feel her heart racing against his chest. His own speeds up as if to match her pace.

“I wouldn’t fucking hesitate.” She pushes her head further into the bedding, trying to increase the distance between them. His breath smells like Chinese food and it reminds her that she’s hungry. It’s easier to focus on the pangs inside her abdomen than the warmth of the body pressed up against it. “I’d shoot you right between your fucking eyes.”

Debra sounds so certain, he wonders if she’s thought about it. Thought about killing him as often as he thinks about killing her. Well, probably not as often. Being cooped up with her, keeping her in his space, all day, all night. Living with restraint, trying not to picture her limbs severed from her body, trying not to think about blood gushing from her throat. How beautiful she’d look, all cut up, frozen, bloodless and on display for him.

“Fuck,” He mutters, dropping his head, resting his forehead on the pillow beside her to try and hide his face from her. Compose yourself. Before you do something you’ll regret.

Unfortunately, Deb chooses that moment to shift her hips into a more comfortable position, brushing against the front of his shorts. He hisses and she freezes in place as if turned to stone. Nobody moves. Nobody speaks. Until—

“You’re sick,” Although her nose wrinkles in disgust, her voice is laced with fear, betrayed by the slightest tremble.

“We’ve already established that,” He responds through gritted teeth, squeezing her wrists tightly before letting go.

Brian sits up so he’s kneeling over her, one leg on either side of her body. He looks at the knife on the nightstand, the red of the ribbon, the rolls of duct tape stacked there. He looks back at Deb beneath him, struggling to prop herself up on her elbows, breathing heavily.

He looks back at the knife. Deb. The knife. Deb. The knife. Deb.

As his fingers close around the handle of the blade, excitement courses through him, rushing through every inch of his body like sparks dancing on his skin.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” Brian brings the knife into her view, watching her eyes widen. She stops breathing. He rests a hand at the base of her throat and pushes her back down softly. Deb goes down without resistance. He doesn’t know if it’s the remnants of the drugs or if she’s just cooperating.

“I think about… about hurting you so much it drives me crazy,” He continues, placing the flat of the blade against the side of her throat. Deb’s fingers close around his wrist, but she can’t pull his hand away. Not in the state she is. “Especially when you piss me off. Like today. And last night. All your tricks.”

As he speaks, he moves the blade downwards, brushing against her soft skin. The edge meets the crook of her neck, and he’s careful to glide softly over it, resting the point of the knife against her collarbone.

“But—” His free hand runs along her shoulder, down her arm and up again to her chest. “I can’t stand the thought of damaging you.”

He drags the blade sharply down, leaving behind a shallow pink mark, no more than an inch in length. Deb loses her grip on his hand at the sudden movement. Blood begins bubbling to the surface and he presses his thumb over the small wound.

She whimpers (fucking whimpers) and the sound cuts straight through him with a jolt. Brian closes his eyes and breathes deeply. Finally, he climbs off of her, swinging his leg over so he’s kneeling beside her on the bed.

“You want me to tell you the truth? One true thing that I said to you?” He asks her, tracing the knife down her sternum, down her stomach, leaving a thin red line in its wake. It snags on the waistband of her underwear and she flinches sharply away. Brian removes his hand from her collarbone to press down on her stomach. He swipes his thumb back and forth and smears blood over her skin.

Deb closes her eyes and clenches the sheets in her fists as tightly as she can. She retreats as far back into her head as she dares, because fuck him if he thinks he’s going to get another reaction out of her. She needs to distract herself. She needs to think of something else. But she can’t. She’s stuck here. Stuck here with him.

He lifts her leg with a hand behind her knee, drawing it first upwards, then outwards towards him. The knife dances along her inner thigh and she waits for pain to follow. It doesn’t. Instead she feels him kiss her knee softly, and rest the knife at the back of her ankle.

“I love your body,” Brian whispers and her eyes burn behind her eyelids. She won’t react. She won’t. That’s what he wants. “I meant it. I mean it. I love your arms, and your legs, and I want to take you apart and preserve that image of you in my head.”

She’s going to be sick. Oh God, she’s going to be sick.

“But I don’t have all my equipment. I don’t have my freezer. I want nothing more than to take my time with you but our circumstances won’t allow for it. I even thought, when I got you here, that I’d relieve you of one – or both – of your feet. Or your fingers. Or a hand. So you would know not to try and run away from me again.”

Despite trying to keep her eyes closed, tears leak through and spill down her face. Brian can feel her shaking against him, and moves the knife away from her ankle by a small amount.

“But it would be unsightly,” His hand not holding the knife slides up her thigh and squeezes slowly, almost like he’s trying to… reassure her. “So I’m not going to do that. Think about pet birds, for example. You don’t have to cut their wings off. You only have to clip them.”

He taps the knife against the back of her ankle again, moving his other hand to grip her ankle tightly.

“This—” Brian indicates the back of her ankle by tapping it with the flat of the blade, “—is your Achilles tendon. It connects your calf muscle to your heel, and – fun fact – it’s actually the largest tendon in your body.”

Deb’s eyes snap open as she starts trying to pull her leg free from his iron grip. He continues, unbothered.

“It’s pretty essential. You use it to walk, to run. If it gets torn, or sprained, or cut, well… It won’t get better by itself—”

“No! Don’t! I won’t– I won’t run—”

“It’s too late for that, Deb.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m really fucking sorry, Rudy—”

“That’s not my name,” He warns her, voice dangerously low. She feels the sting as the knife glances along her tendon. A warning.

“Brian! Brian, please don’t do this. Please. I’m so sorry – you have no fucking idea how fucking sorry I am.”

“Oh, Debra… I know.” Brian smiles so sweetly at her, and the knife sinks deeper.

“What do you fucking want?” Her voice wobbles between a shriek and a sob, so loud he fears somebody will hear them. She keeps trying to grab him, pull him away, and manages to hook her fingers into the crook of his arm. Her nails scratch concerningly close to his burn wound.

The look he gives her is so full of pity that for the briefest of moments, she thinks it’s genuine.

“Deb—”

“I’ll do it. Whatever you want – I’ll do it. I won’t run, or fight, or scream. I’ll– I’ll be good.”

He moves the knife away. Blood runs down her heel and drips onto the sheets. Brian silently places the knife back on the nightstand as Deb drags her hands over her face and tries to calm herself down.

The red ribbon looks tauntingly beautiful as he runs his fingers over it. Anything I want, Deb?

Gently, he prises her hands away from her face, folding them into his own, entangling their fingers.

“What?” She sniffles. Her face is wet and sticky with tears. She’s bitten her lip so hard it’s bleeding. Her lashes are clumped together and her pupils are blown, the black of her pupils a stark contrast to her face which fear stole the colour from.

His mouth is on hers before he can think. Deb tastes like salt and the familiar metallic tang of blood. His teeth graze her lower lip as he pulls away to study her again.

“You’re beautiful.”

Notes:

Thank you so much for reading! Feedback is always appreciated xx

I'm just going to ramble about this chapter for a little while, so feel free to ignore this. I never understood what other writers meant when I heard the phrase 'this chapter/book/story wrote itself' until I sat down to finish this one because oh my. I do have a plan for this story and this chapter was supposed to be some emotional bonding, bordering on fluffy, until (or this is what felt like happened) Brian just decided to be absolutely unhinged and snatched the wheel straight from my hands. I'm a little frightened, honestly. Do not fear, the plan is still on track, it just took a hard left turn. One more thing, I'm not 100% sure how terrifying the tendon thing is to the average reader because I've done ballet for over a decade and any sort of damage to that fucker would be game over. But then again it's a gnarly injury for any athlete or regular person. Or in Deb's case, somebody who puts a lot of value on her athletic ability.

Also! I don't know if my tags are entirely accurate, so please let me know if there's anything you think I should include/exclude when it comes to tags.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 4 of The Cat And The Mouse