Welcome to Miami

by hballegro

Summary:

It's a normal night for Dexter on the streets of Miami, with his eyes set on his newest victim and his night finally free from the strain of the day job. Unfortunately, his victim found someone a little easier to charm than others, and now Dexter has to think on his feet to be a hero.

Chapter 1: Is It Your First Time Here in the City?

Notes:

yeah man i dunno hello its been like half a year. enjoy as i sink into the pit and HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Tonight's the night.

The conversation of a busy Miami sidewalk had settled to a dull roar as the sun set. All that remained was the ever-present noise of cars along the street, tires ripping the wet pavement, and people that couldn’t sleep chattering inside of bars or out on patios in the cooling night air. The air stank with a midnight storm that had rolled through, leaving its wet mark on the city and trapping everything under a dense blanket of humidity.

Proof of this dew-made blanket settled across the broad, flat metal of car hoods, making them glitter like Christmas tree ornaments. The condensation kept the sweat on his arm damp, sticking down hairs, making it itch and tickle as each strand slowly freed itself.

One-twenty-eight. Thought they’d never let me go.

Long-gone dinner rumbled like a ghost in his stomach. A particularly busy Miami summer in the peak of a heatwave meant he’d been kept far longer than he wanted, chasing down a hundred different killers and countless more files and samples that kept getting in the way of what he really wanted to be doing.

He looked at the car across the street from the bar. Illinois plates. It probably got here at one in the morning, like it had every night for the last four.

Good. He’s still here. Monsters were creatures of habit, as he very well knew, and Oliver Beaumont had formed a strict routine around his newest hunting grounds.

Another couple wandered out of the bar as he lingered by the car, faces hard to make out in the harsh back lighting. Both were too short for him to care. I wonder if Officer Clark still comes here. Maybe he has a companion now, doesn’t need to. Maybe they come here together, who knows. Do couples go to bars together? Is that something you do in a relationship?

The pair vanished down the street, hopefully going home to sleep, like normal people would be doing at this hour. The rest of the people outside continued their patio drinking and merry-making.

Is it different if it’s a gay bar?

Oliver Beaumont. Just moved down from New York City, if you took him at his word. A lawyer, cared for his ailing mother for years, decided to move down someplace warm after she passed away. Looking for a pair of soft arms to fall into. It was a little impressive; a few nights ago, this well-rehearsed life came spilling out of him as easily as the truth. To get him, he needed proof beyond any shadow of doubt, and an empty beer bottle would deliver just that. Unfortunately, this also meant having to go in there, and while there was certainly nothing wrong with it, if anyone he knew saw him, it would spur some people to investigate his social life far closer than he wanted them to.

It would stop them from asking why I don’t have a girlfriend. Maybe it could be a decent cover. Eh, but then they’d start asking why I don’t have a boyfriend instead.

After making sure he wasn’t talking to a New York native, he went on and on about the food, the night life, the smell of the city. Frankly, many people probably found Oliver charming, but he just found him outright annoying. Kept them both out ‘til two-thirty in the morning, when Oliver finally stood up and asked if he wanted to go home with him.

But that was a death sentence.

It was a simple game of ‘spot the difference’; to find a repeat offender, you had to find something similar across two or more crime scenes to link them. For his usual prey, it almost always ended up being method and victim above all – monsters were creatures of habit, as he well knew. There was a certain kind of person they wanted to kill, and a certain way they liked doing it.

Two people were found dead and dumped in two different alleys roughly a month apart from one another. Two is hardly an epidemic, and when it’s thrown in with all of the other violent crimes across Miami, it doesn’t really warrant more than an eyebrow raise and a murmur of how it’s a ‘damn shame’. Both went no where; the man and woman had nothing in common with one another other than being from out of town and turning up dead in the same way.

Both were strangled, so the police assumed crimes of passion – scorned lovers, most likely. It wasn’t an unreasonable assumption; movies made it seem like choking someone to death was no big deal, that a healthy person could be killed by a twenty-second-squeeze around the throat, but it took time. You had to hold firm as they clawed and squirmed and slapped and hit and screamed and cried and tried anything in their power to live, to breathe. You had to keep holding on as they slowly faded, as they passed out, as they seemed dead, because they might still have a heartbeat thrumming against your palms as you constrict. It was a lot of work, especially for a stranger, if you just wanted them dead. Stabbing, shooting, even hitting them with your car – anything was faster, if the end goal was just death. Strangling usually meant they wanted to watch the life leave their victim’s eyes. Most would naturally assume a vendetta, and love gone sour had a way of doing that to people.

But they were wrong. These people hadn’t wronged someone; the only “wrong” they committed was having a drink at the bar after a long day. They’d never met their grim reaper before he walked through the door and asked if that seat next to them was taken. The only reason they’d died was making the mistake of thinking Mr. Oliver Beaumont was there for the same reason they were.

But that Illinois plate. It was a little funny – the stereotype was that a killer always returned to the scene of the crime. I never do – there’s nothing left to ever come back to. Seeing an out of state license plate wasn’t out of the ordinary, and the first time around, it warranted nothing but a mental note: ‘they’re a long way from home, I wonder what brings them to Miami?’ But by the second scene, it suddenly became noteworthy: a long way from home, and rubbernecking at two deaths despite them being far from one another. A little poking brought up the owner of the plate, one Oliver Beaumont. A little further digging showed why he’d hurried down to Miami and spun a story about New York and his rental car and dead mother; this wasn’t the first time he tried it. The woman got away, and with a few connections, he got off free enough to come down to Florida and try his hand at it again.

Thus, the beer bottle, in an effort to match the unidentified DNA under the second victim’s fingernails. An entire evening spent listening to Mr. Beaumont tell tales of his new photography hobby, the lies through his teeth about the Big Apple, the attempts at flirtation that might have been tempting to others at the bar – but both of these men were trying to fill a different, shared need.

Another pair popped out, chattering excitedly. One man giggled, conjuring thoughts of excited hyenas eyeing a meal. There’s a lot worse ways to spend my night, I guess. Watching happy, boring drunk people is a better sight than—

The thought fizzled out. Ugh. Too late at night to try and think of other scenarios, too late to think at all. He rubbed his eyes, letting his vision blur and slowly refocus. The salt of sweat from his fingers stung, but hey, maybe it would help him stay awake. Lots of late nights getting out of the lab long after the sun went down only to prowl the streets at night for a black car with Illinois plates.

Thankfully, the man owning that out-of-state car never went to trial, and some high-up friends of this informally-retired lawyer had made sure the upload of his DNA to the larger database was firmly at the bottom of anyone’s priority list, and therefore was kept far away from the Miami Metro PD and their assumedly Florida bad guys. He was practically gift-wrapped; Oliver Beaumont had killed one man, most likely at least two and probably more in Illinois, and he wanted to do it again – the police were none the wiser.

He decided early on that he’d make this one special. Something about this one – maybe the audacity to encroach on his own hunting grounds, coming from out of state – spurred on a special craving. Harry always taught him not to play with his food, but everyone deserved a treat now and then; his just happened to come in the form of some dramatic irony.

An easy kill, just for him. A good hunt.

Just what I need after a long week.

As the world came back into focus, he finally slunk across the street, checking for oncoming traffic. It would be safer to just wait for him at home, set up the kill room there, make quick work of it all, but that risked him the presence of another hunter’s intended prey, and that would make everything much more complicated. Besides, he seemed to go home whenever he damn pleased, and falling asleep waiting around for his target was not good. Best move was to bring him back home himself – also happened to be the most satisfying.

Hope I can make some convincing bait.

The couple was still by the door, just barely far away enough to ignore him, and he slipped inside without notice.

It was… unpleasant.

That wasn’t a fair assessment, really, but any place with a large amount of drunk people and noise was unpleasant.

At least my shoes aren’t sticking to the floor.

His eyes fluttered to the bar, Oliver’s favourite spot. Easy to sit by people when there’s an empty stool next to them, easy to pick up people you sit by. Simple math. Less simple; there was no Oliver, no matter how many times he looked.

Maybe he’s just in the bathroom. He put his back on a wall, looking out at the various clientele. I’ll catch him as he’s paying, tell him I reconsidered his offer, and he’ll drive us back to his house.

The man was versatile, he had to give him that. Man, woman, no single vacationer was safe in the city of Miami until this Chicago killer was out of the picture. Couldn’t wait to get him on the table and find out why he picked them – just for convenience, or did he have something against them?

One-thirty.

Something didn’t feel right.

The man was erratic with his leave times, but one thing had been consistent; for the past five nights, Oliver never left before two. Maybe he wanted to let the alcohol sit, maybe he just wanted to give it at least an hour before he gave up, but regardless, he was at least consistent in his inconsistency.

One-thirty-one.

I’m being paranoid. He’s just in the bathroom.

He’d get in the car with him, only have to tolerate a few minutes of his fake New England stories and lurid comments, and then package him up nice and neatly for the fish. The hunter becomes the hunted, the prey becomes the predator – killed by the very thing he kills. It was perfect planning.

One-thirty-two.

Dexter poked his head out of the bar, scanning the sidewalk for any signs of life, his eyes catching on lights, on people drinking, on a few eyes looking him over – remember to smile and nod – and the rows of cars still out at this time of night. After a moment of standing there, he noticed something much more worrying than a few bystanders watching him:

Nothing.

The absence of a car.

“Shit.”

He started walking, eyes trained on the empty spot.

When had he slipped out? The car was still there when he went in – was he on the patio this whole time and Dexter hadn’t noticed?

He was at the bar. His pace picked up. He could’ve slipped out the back, been discreet – but why would he bother unless he was up to something?

He couldn’t let this one get away – it was stupid to try and play this game with him, and now he had an extra five minute walk as punishment, in this heat—

Was he with the laughing man?

He stopped.

He tried to remember the other half of that couple; on the taller side, shortish hair, white. That’s all he could really tell from behind, but it fit him fine, and would explain why he never noticed him leave.

Most important part of the night and I walk right by him.

If that really was him, that meant he wasn’t alone.

“Fuck.” Dexter leaned against the crying brick of the building to his right, putting his hands through his hair.

I can’t get him now, not when there’s a witness. If I’d gotten here sooner—

He couldn’t control his day job. What he could’ve controlled was taking this guy out three days ago, when he first had the chance.

Saving people isn’t my job, it’s a happy by-product. I just need to get some sleep.

He couldn’t save everyone in Miami; there would always be death. There would be a lot more if he got caught doing something that might implicate him, and that was bound to happen if he stuck his nose in this hornet’s nest. He couldn’t risk a witness, no matter what.

Dexter started walking again, a steady if slow pace back to his car. He could already feel the nice, cool touch of the pillow under his head, the firm mattress, the inviting sheets barely covering him. The rattle of the A/C unit providing soft ambiance. He’d try again tomorrow.

That guy looked pretty small compared to him. Probably easy pickings – and he’s probably lonely, going with a stranger.

Work might be bad again in the morning, but the sooner he got to bed, the later he could stay up tomorrow to take this monster off the street. He might make it to three bodies in Miami, but he’d never make it to four.

If he took him back to his house, they could already be there.

He paused to cross the street, checking for oncoming traffic yet again. One more crosswalk, and he could head for home, for a well-rested day tomorrow, for a nice extra-curricular. For safety, for a sure-thing…

Five minutes, much less to knock him out. Maybe he can buy himself some time if he puts up a decent fight, but—

...for a workday including a man found strangled and dumped in an alleyway for the crime of having a few drinks on vacation.

Fuck.

Dexter sighed, and started running.

---

The black car with Illinois plates sat in the driveway, silent, already cooled. The neighbourhood was quiet, but a deep unease already settled into Dexter’s stomach, and he hated it. He wasn’t used to being so close to his victims when they were actively doing the very things he punished them for – something about it seemed… vile. Distasteful. Perverse, even. There was an innocent man in there.

‘Plan’ wasn’t exactly the word he’d use to describe what had distilled in his mind on the short drive over – ‘goal’ was a lot closer. An unsettling weight on everything made it hard to think. He slipped on his gloves, only knowing he had to stop whatever was happening in that house from happening. Maybe he could say he was in the neighbourhood and heard a scream, nevermind why he was in the neighbourhood to begin with, or how he heard a scream from inside his car, or why he responded to it by breaking and entering instead of just knocking.

The lack of sound as he crept through the door could’ve meant many things. They’d probably only been there ten minutes, maybe less. They could just be asleep, but it didn’t seem like most people would bring someone back home just for sleep. A little part of him hoped they were anyway, but then again, how would he explain picking the front door then?

A distant thump.

He quickened his pace, trying to keep his steps quiet. He needed to keep his presence a surprise as long as he could – an unseen predator had the greatest advantage, and his target was bigger, stronger, and probably a whole lot angrier than he could manage flatly.

Passing the kitchen, he hesitated. A knife block sat full by the sink beside a pair of floral-print rubber gloves. Hand to hand combat was riskier, but bringing in a weapon might make it more dangerous if Oliver took it from him. Besides, it would lead to many more questions if the man was stabbed ‘in a panic’ by a knife from another room.

I don’t want to deal with getting blood out of the carpet anyway. The slight weight of the needle container in his pocket was tempting, but if he was going to try and convince the witness that it was all a spur of the moment thing, having a heavy-duty tranquilizer in your pocket was a hell of a coincidence – a veterinarian making a house call by cutting into a quiet suburb? With a kill kit in his car?

He continued down the hall.

A sliver of an open door, the smell of wine wafting out. More thumping. The sound of something sliding around on carpet. Gurgling, panting. A struggle.

The light was on. Dimmed.

In the slit of the door, he could just make out two figures engaged in a struggle: one below, on the floor, supine, legs kicking, straining weakly, and one above, straddling, grabbing. Squeezing. The man on the floor made sticky back-of-the-throat sounds, clicks, attempted gasps through a closed airway. A dark spot on the carpet by the bed with a wine glass glinting, broken.

If he didn’t get him good from the start, there’d be a fight, and disregarding any added danger from an angry killer denied a victim, Dexter might lose, and Oliver would be free to run off into the night. He’d be in the wind, and the witness would insist on filing a report, and Dexter would have a lot of questions to answer.

Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe the witness would just want it all to go away, forgotten and left behind in Miami as he headed for home. Club Havana would be removed from his mind, as would be the man he met there, and the man that saved him.

Saved him. This isn’t my responsibility; I’m not Deb. This goes sideways, it could all be over.

Or I could be a hero, no one suspects a hero.

A big unknown was growing weaker on the floor, buzzing and drowning out all avenues of thought. Kill him now, maybe the witness keeps it to himself and flees. That’s still a huge liability, no matter where he flees to. Don’t kill him now, and maybe the witness stays quiet, but Oliver is free to run off to the next city, strangle more vacationers, and rob Dexter of his meal.

He was supposed to be better at thinking on his feet than this.

I need to get him off the guy, or I’ll have a bigger problem and a lot more to think about.

Dexter slipped off his belt as quietly as he could manage, and crept up. Just over Oliver’s shoulder, he could see the face of the victim clearly, red and strained. Eerily familiar, but he’d never seen it make that kind of expression before. Who are you?

He looped the belt around his target’s neck, yanking back as hard as he could, earning a surprised gasp cut short by the leather. The man on the floor took in a breath before starting to hack, holding his throat and struggling to back away. Oliver, meanwhile, reared back, making Dexter stumble slightly but still keep a firm grip. Meaty hands started flapping at him, bruising him inevitably – people usually accept ‘I don’t know’ as an answer for those – as Oliver started trying to stand.

Uh oh.

The much larger man leaned back and let himself fall off his perch from his knees onto his back – or rather, onto Dexter’s chest, sandwiched between him and the floor. The air came out of him, and very suddenly he felt a spike of adrenaline that should’ve come sooner. Sure, he played sports as a kid – he knew what it felt to get the wind knocked out of him – but that didn’t make it any less panic-inducing that a known killer a full head taller than him was now ripping free from his grip and turning around.

Breathless, diaphragm in spasm, Dexter started crawling – if he could just get away, just a little, he could get some air and figure something out. He only got about a foot forward in his scrambling before he felt hands close around his leg.

The carpet pulled up the corner of his shirt and burned his skin with the rough yank back into place, and a very pissed off Oliver Beaumont rolled him up to face the ceiling. A solid mass settled over him, and hands gripped tight around his throat like a python – less the kind to crush his windpipe and watch him choke on his own blood, more the kind to watch him slowly fade. He started saying things, probably asking who the hell he was – maybe just cursing him, Dexter wasn’t exactly engaged with that part of their interaction at the moment.

After some futile pawing at the grip on his throat, he remembered the original plan, original consequences now unimportant. A hand shot down to reach his leg pocket, but the massive thigh hugging one side of his body blocked his path, smothering that idea. His legs kicked uselessly, managing an ineffective knee in his attacker’s back a few times and nothing else besides thumping and scraping.

So this is what it feels like. It became harder and harder to hear his heart in his ears, but it was set off like a rabbit’s, a little engine desperate to survive. He hated it.

It can’t end here, not like this, this is embarrassing—

Something long and thin hit his shoulder.

Anything for an edge – he grabbed at it and felt its length, its flared base, its pointed and broken end.

Something sharp—

Without any further though, his arm struck out, nesting the new tool deep, deep into Oliver’s neck. Almost immediately the hands loosened, one leaving entirely to now grip the gushing out from around the edges of the broken stem of the wine glass. Dexter’s stomach grew warm with the dripping, and he grabbed the bedframe, pulling himself away.

The stranger was sitting up now, nearer the stain on the carpet, making high-pitched sounds of fear and something like disgust as they both watched Oliver wet his hands completely with his neck. A particularly loud shriek sounded as Oliver slumped back, nearer to the cowering man, taking a firm grip of the stem.

Least you could do is pull it out, make my life easier after all the mess you caused.

Out it came. With it, a new, thicker flood, spilling out into the carpet. A red hand swept out wide, grabbing the stranger’s shirt and yanking hard, staining his front as the flow continued with the beat of his heart, spattering the poor man’s face as Oliver coughed. Dexter lunged – he didn’t work this hard to save the witness just for him to end up stabbed anyway – and grabbed a handful of neatly-combed hair, pulling as hard as he could.

That seemed to do it. With one last gush from the movement, Oliver fell onto his back. Dexter grabbed hold of the man now covered in a killer’s blood and pulled him away, their eyes never leaving the man growing fainter on the floor.

A struggle.

Gurgling, panting.

The sound of something sliding on carpet.

Thumping.

Silence.

Dexter’s grip was still around the witness’s bicep, so he gave it a tug to get his attention. Two wide, teary, prey-like eyes suddenly bore into him, relief obvious. There was something familiar about them.

Okay, you’re a regular, average, concerned citizen that just happened to walk in on a crime. A hero, you’re a hero – calm, take charge, but show you’re human. Act a little spooked.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to fake the adrenaline-tremor in his voice. “Are you okay?”

The only response was a nod – several nods, actually, but fast and frantic enough to count as one. He turned his attention back to his rapidly-cooling attacker and moved forward to pounce – and wrap his arms around Dexter.

...at least he’s not scared of me, after seeing me do… that.

“That—it all just happened so fast…” His voice felt uncomfortably hoarse. Hopefully he could just tell people at the station he was coming down with something. “He was—he was choking you—”

The man now wrapped around him and covering him in even more blood sobbed over his shoulder, his voice dry from panic and face slick with the lessening terror.

Not my strong suit. He tried a few pats on the back, tossing a rub in for good measure. “You’re okay, we’re safe. You’re safe.”

More blubbering—it sounded like ‘thank you’ was part of it, but it was hard to tell. Something in the voice made Dexter’s ears burn.

Ok, lean more ‘saviour’, maybe. He’s a mess, maybe he needs someone strong.

“He’s… not gonna get back up.”

A loud sniff, and a head coming back over his shoulder to look at the heap. “Is—” Those eyes again. “Is he dead?”

“Safe to say.” Strong, not casual, ugh.

“Oh God…” He let go slightly, looking down at the mess made of his shirt. Glad he can’t see his face right now. “Oh God, I have a dead man’s blood all over me—”

“Hey hey hey—” The last thing I need his him panicking. “It’s not that big a deal—”

“You stabbed him and I—I gave you the glass and then you stabbed him and now his blood is all—all over me—”

“It—it was self defense!” He swallowed hard; the adrenaline dried his mouth, too. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Right, it—” More of the same, fevered nods. “It was self-defense, it—you had to, you had to do it, or he would’ve killed you and then come around and killed me too, we had to do it.”

“What even happened? How did—how did you end up here?” I mean, I know already, but might as well hear how he hunted tonight.

“We—he bought me a drink, a-and he was—I mean he seemed, he seemed like he was nice, and he was cute and when he asked if I wanted a glass of good wine, it felt—God, I am such a fucking idiot—”

“No you aren’t, stop that.” He watched the man hide his face in his hands. “He’s the bad guy here, don’t blame yourself.” Or maybe do, might help you come to my side.

“God...”

Time to put all that practice acting human into action. Dexter turned his head to look at the body, widening his eyes, flickering over his feet, his hands, his head – just any part of him, so long as it was quick glances. He let his mouth hang open a bit, trying to sell horror. “It… this doesn’t look good.”

After no response, he looked over to see the man just staring at the corpse.

Glad I put all that work in, thanks. “There’s two of us, one of him, and I mean—except for some bruising, the only one with any wounds is him, and he’s dead, in his own home…”

“His own home…” That got him to look back at his new co-conspirator.

“I—and I don’t know about you, but I live here, and even if the police believe us, I mean—he seemed nice when you met him, didn’t he? He’s bound to have friends, they won’t wanna believe that we killed him because we had no other choice..."

The best way to convince someone you were being honest was to tell the truth. All he could do now is give another firm yank on the heartstrings, remind this man of the debt he now owed, and hope he took the bait.

“This could—this could ruin my life, I-I didn't even do anything wrong—”

“Hey, take a deep breath.” Now it was Dexter’s turn to receive a rub on the back. It was weird to hear a voice so clogged with mucus telling him to calm down, but at least he was winning pity. “We need to call someone—”

“Do you have any idea how this looks? Look at you! You’re soaked—”

“Look at you, you’re not any better!” Scared almost out of his wits and he still has a mind to mouth off at me.

“That’s my point. We need to get out of here.”

“It’s not—”

“Listen to me.” He was already in this deep, might as well make the full push. “I work with the police, I know how they work, and this is gonna be a big problem for the rest of our lives.”

Cogs that had been humming in the back of the man’s mind seemingly came to the front, distress spread across his face – he didn’t like where all this was going, but something other than Dexter seemed to be dragging him along. He looked back and forth – the body, the killer, the bloody glass, the stranger, the monster, the… other monster, but he didn’t know that part.

Sniff. His voice dropped down like he was scared to make too much noise, meek. “Then do we… do we just leave…?”

“No. No, we should clean up.”

“Clean up? I don’t know how to—”

“I know.” It sounds like I’m arguing with myself. Dexter finally stood, looking down at his soaked Henley with mild disgust. “We can make it like neither of us were ever here.”

His new accomplice slowly got to his feet, gesturing. “What do you mean, look at the mess! There’s a fucking dead body, I’d say that’s pretty good—”

“Stop—” A harsh plap; Dexter’s gloved palms slapped firmly into the stranger’s cheeks, holding his head fast and forcing eye contact. The startled gaze was exactly level with his own, growing more fearful the longer Dexter glared, “...talking. I know what I’m doing. We can fix this. We can—we can do this, but you gotta help me, okay?”

The clean-shaven face was slightly sticky in his hands, a reminder that he was a big, loud, mobile piece of evidence. Just need him to think it’s too late to turn back.

“Okay?” He shook the head in his grasp slightly and earned sweaty hands around his wrists as a reward.

“Okay, yes, okay.” The man was easy to spook, at least. He let go, the leather making a slight tearing sound at separating from the wet skin.

“Good.” What can I have him do…

Already he was looking at the body again. Nothing with that, obviously.

“What’s your name?”

“My—” A very, very pregnant pause. Considering an alias? Confused why he asked? Just out of it? “David.”

“Okay, David. Take off your shoes and your overshirt and leave them here in the bedroom. I want you to go to the kitchen and get the rubber gloves on the side of the sink, put them on. Then I want you to take a towel and wipe down anything you touched while you were here. Even stuff you might not’ve touched, just wipe it down if you even think you could’ve gotten your prints on.” Easy job. I’ll check his work obviously, but… nothing with blood.

“I—I can do that.” The relief was clear; the man didn’t seem squeamish, but being in the bedroom any longer was the least palatable thing he could think of.

David, the newly named stranger, began to move away when Dexter grabbed his wrist firm. “If you miss anything, I mean anything, a speck of blood on the towel and smeared on the wall so fine that you can’t even see it, and you’re in deep, deep shit. Take your time. Don’t touch anything without wiping it down.”

They held each other’s gaze for a long, protracted moment. A twin set, but each look painted with different shades of the same desperation.

And David slipped off his loafers and his shirt, and left the room.

---

It was probably the worst cleanup he’d ever had to do. The race to keep the blood from soaking into the baseboard was already terrible, but the added mess of a man that decided to roam instead of just lying down and dying like a normal person made cleaning the spots off the wall that much more irritating. A little bathroom chemistry with a trip to the car for rubber gloves and he had the cure-all to the blood issue, but that still meant a lot of elbow grease. Oliver himself now sat wrapped neatly in a plastic furniture cover, prevented from leaking all over the rest of the carpet with a few added layers of taped-together trashbags to make sure. He’d get to a proper disposal when there wasn’t a scared little man wearing Dexter’s face walking around the place with his eyes raking over every inch of touchable surfaces.

That’s what it was, he’d realized on about the 8^th visit from the annoying neurotic asking about the protocol for plush surfaces; the face was so familiar because it was his. It was paler, clean-shaven, covered in blood, and showing a lot more distress than Dexter would bother with no matter who he might be trying to convince, but undeniably the same.

But better not to mention that. Either David had also noticed that they stood the same height, spoke the same voice, wore the same skin, and had just decided to ignore it, or he hadn’t noticed, and he’d probably explode if Dexter brought it up.

He got halfway into scrubbing up the wine stain before deciding it wasn’t worth it. It would help sell the narrative of leaving in a hurry if he just left it. Instead, his attention turned to packing the bag that Oliver would never be using, putting the essentials of a getaway neatly together as he moved through the now-cleaned room—except for the body by the door.

“I think that’s everyth—are you robbing him?” The witness was back, wrists still up and afraid to touch anything despite the gloves. He seemed stunned; what, you can believe I’d kill a man and cover it up, but I’m above stealing?

“Technically, I guess. I’m making it look like he packed up and left in a hurry.” He swept a wide hand under the bed, searching.

“Oh.” He hadn’t been mouthy anymore, at least.

Come on, where is it? Dexter moved back to the dresser, crouching to check the bottom drawer.

“What are you looking for?”

“Something to sell it.”

Among the socks and underwear strewn about with little care for matches or wrinkles, his hand hit something flat and hard. Please don’t be a sex toy or something, a cigar box emerged from the pile of underthings with a sigh of relief. Inside, a slew of forgettable things you’d find inside a wallet or purse; a Blockbuster card, a yet-to-fade ticket stub for American Psycho, a tube of lip gloss, a receipt for a pack of Juicy Fruit and menthol cigarettes, and a library card.

A library card belonging to someone not named Oliver Beaumont.

Predictable.

“Go get a big pot and put it on the stove, and see if you can dig up some lighter fluid.”

A question clearly formed on David’s face before he turned to do as asked – as soon as the man had gotten his hands dirty, really dirty, with real crime, like obstruction of justice crime, he’d been a lot easier to deal with.

Dexter stood back up and finished zipping up the suitcase, bringing it to the door. Just a little bit longer and he’d be rid of all this – David would go back to wherever he came from, and Dexter would get a tiny reminder from Oliver before cutting him up and making the fish very happy. This nightmare would be over, no more botched hunt and no more worrying about the cops, no more tiptoeing around the real reason he knew how to do what he did, everything would be fine again.

A little part of him did hate to see what it was doing to his unwitting accomplice. He’d undergone something traumatic, almost strangled by the hands of someone he’d probably planned to have sex with, only for a stranger to intervene and kill him. It was a lot – and now he’d had to help clean up, and the secret would have to stick between the two of them for the rest of their lives, and they’d probably be thousands or at least hundreds of miles away from one another.

Probably better for him that way, I’m getting the distinct feeling he’s scared of me.

“You work quick.” Dexter plopped the box, open, in the pot as David stood back up straight with a small can of lighter fluid.

“What are you doing?”

“Making it look like he knew he had something incriminating and tried to get rid of it before he left.” People feared the unknown almost as much as they feared death. A few details to ease his mind.

“What’s incriminating for him?”

“This is a box of stuff from other people.” Dexter grabbed the can, taking out the receipt and hosing everything else down in the flammable liquid. “People that are now dead.”

“It—he—this—you..?”

Maybe a few too many details. He didn’t bother looking over to see his stunned and horrified expression yet again – it was grotesque, seeing his own features curl up to look like that. His face wasn’t supposed to look like that. He turned the burner on and lit the paper, tossing it in the pot. “Uh… I had a feeling he’d done this before. People that kill for kicks usually keep things from their victims. He’s… well, strangling is bold—”

He watched the flames lick the edges of the pot, putting a lid on it. Don’t want to destroy it all the way. “I thought, well, if he’s bold enough for that, he’s probably bold enough to not hide his keepsakes very well.

“So I checked the obvious spots you hide something you don’t want people seeing, but aren’t that invested in: under the bed and the sock drawer. And—”

“I wasn’t the first?”

“How many things were in there?”

“Tell me.”

“Five. Five things.”

“Five.” David’s hand started moving to his forehead, but quickly slapped down on the counter with remembrance of deep, deep shit. “Five people, five people—”

“He didn’t get to six.”

David fixed on something beyond the white-tile backsplash, face slightly pinched and otherwise blank.

“Come on. Help me get the stuff into my car and we can leave.”

“David?”

“Do you mean the body?”

“That includes the body.”

While Dexter’s pool of experience regarding carrying a dead body with someone was zero, he had to admit, David wasn’t making something harder for once. No squirming away in disgust, no slipping hands, no accidental drops. They folded the five-time-killer into the trunk of Dexter’s car, and put the trashbag of soiled clothes alongside the suitcase in the back seat.

They stood there, David in his socks and a stolen t-shirt from Oliver to cover his bloody undershirt, and Dexter in a shirt dark enough to explain away the blood as some other liquid.

“He drove you here, I can drop you off somewhere.”

“I can’t go back to my hotel like this.”

He had a point. Both options were problematic for different reasons; he couldn’t drop him off at a hotel without getting cleaned up the right way first, but he couldn’t take him along to cut up and dispose of the body, either.

“God…”

“Do you live alone?”

Well that isn’t a good option.

“I could… get this off of me and get a cab back.”

“I don’t know if—”

“What, you don’t trust me in your house? What could I possibly do to make things worse?”

You could snoop. And you could also know my address, in addition to knowing I work with the police, and you’ll always have a clear image of my face on hand—

David shifted in his stance, shoving his hands under his armpits. “I’m exhausted and I want to get this over with. Can we please just go?”

If he was going to tattle, he wouldn’t’ve helped cover up so much.

“Please?”

“Fine. You can shower at my apartment—but then you’re leaving.” Dexter sat in the driver’s seat and waited for David to round the car before he turned the ignition.

“With pleasure.”

Notes:

once again thank you to the lovely serpercival for looking at my work before i send it off into the world. helped mightily in this case with dexter phrasing and removing 'feel' language from narration because dexter's a big ol dork

 

i'll be doing at least 1 more chapter to show them getting cleaned up n shit

Chapter 2: We Have Quite the Nightlife

Summary:

Dexter has to finish cleanup while tending to a distraught witness; David has to try and act normal after helping kill someone.

Notes:

ungabunga im back its 9.3k words sorry it will happen again

At least he put his seat belt on.

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, his skin prickling like a bristle brush raked over it. In addition to the sweating, the tightness in his face, and the pennies under his tongue, everything about this night was feeling less and less safe.

There was a body in his trunk, which wasn’t unusual by itself, but it was whole. To boot, there was a suitcase of the dead man’s shit in the back seat, he was still covered in blood, and there was the little matter of the eye witness sitting two feet across the center console from him.

He spared a glance over at a red light, watching the passenger looking silently at the dashboard, clearly exhausted. He’d wiped off most of the blood on his face with his soiled shirt, as Dexter had instructed, but some blood still stuck at the borders of his face like unseen shaving cream you wouldn’t notice until someone pointed it out for you. It was drying, which meant it was getting itchy, but the thought of deep, deep shit still kept David from touching any part of himself, hands folded together in his lap. If Dexter could feel sympathy, he’d definitely get a big hit of it right now, seeing this very pitiful man with still-red cheeks and nose from crying, wracked with guilt and a heaping helping of shame from someplace Dexter couldn’t reach. It was a sorry state to see someone in, especially when they looked like you.

I’m not supposed to look like that.

The car rolled forward again. During the drive, it was quiet again, which meant Dexter had a lot more time to sit and stew, and work himself up all over again.

Why had he bothered? He killed killers because it’s what Harry taught him to do, not out of any righteous, moral obligation. He had no responsibility to go and save the man now staring blankly into the middle distance, and he’d jeopardized his continued freedom and other good works to do so.

If a child is drowning, isn’t it every bystander’s job to jump in after them?

It was a first, of course. Sure, he’d had plenty of run-ins where he knew his prey was starting to stalk again, preparing to take a new victim, and Dexter would consequently move his plans forward to prevent it, but he’d never actively taken a victim from the jaws of another predator.

He still hadn’t come up with anything to say when David would inevitably ask why he was there in the first place. Why he had leather gloves at the ready, why he snuck up like a big cat instead of shouting in alarm like a regular human being, why he broke in instead of knocking, why he even went up to the house in the first place.

Or why I know so much about covering up a murder. He stifled a sigh. At least he still thinks its my first time doing this—maybe he won’t ask anything at all, let me off easy.

The blinker clicked on beat as he readied for the final turn into the parking lot.

“What’re we gonna do if someone sees us?”

A moment of thought. “You’re a friend of mine from out of town, we went out for drinks and saw a bar fight. It got messy, we got messy, it spooked us a little and we’re turning in for the night.”

At least he was remembering how to improvise.

Clunk, clunk, pit-pat. Socked, wet feet and boot soles. Each stair creaked, making him keenly aware of how closely his shadow was following.

This was supposed to be relaxing: coming back from a successful hunt, showering, tucking into bed for a few hours of shuteye before the day job, fully rested for the first time in weeks thanks to a finally-sated Dark Passenger. Instead, he had a witness practically glued to his back, walking so close that he could smell the booze from the bar still sticking to him and seeping from his pores. Acting like a human being every day was hard enough, but at least it was lower effort than having to play the part of ‘concerned citizen turned accomplice’ nonstop—and instead of just a social faux pas being the consequence, slipping up here meant something much, much worse.

At least we’re home. He silently unlocked the door, opening it and ushering the other man inside. He flipped on the lights, making both of them blink hard to adjust. Everything was exactly as he’d left it: curtains closed, dishes from breakfast drying—dried—on the rack, laptop on the charger. That was at least something he could breathe a sigh of relief at.

“You’re very… neat, aren’t you?”

Dexter glanced over at the stranger now hugging himself and leaning far more ‘meek’ than ‘fearful’.

“...so.”

“The shower.”

A curt nod, and they walked through the apartment together, making their way to the bathroom. I don’t think anyone’s ever used my shower but me. What’s the protocol for someone else using your shower? His eyes drifted to the towel rack.

“I’ll get you a fresh towel, not gonna make you use mine, and uh…” He’s still drenched under that oversized t-shirt. “I’m gonna take a shot in the dark here and say we’re about the same size, so I’ll get you something to wear.”

Dexter could imagine a less-charitable person describing David’s posture and vocal volume as ‘like a shy teenage girl’. “You don’t have to do all that—”

“I really do, actually. I need yours. I’ve got some things to get rid of, and that includes your clothes.”

“...right. What are you gonna—”

Dexter lifted an eyebrow. The more questions, the more cover-up he’d have to do, after a night of doing nothing but cover-up. And with more cover-up came remembering the cover-ups, and remembering cover-ups was hard work, because if he forgot any of them, he’d have to backpedal and explain why he told two different, conflicting lies, and while David had shown himself as being willing and able to help with a lot, having to come up with a fake place for dumping evidence on the spot was hard, and there was no way he was going to tell him where all the bodies were buried—

“I—I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know.” David put his hands up as he turned, dismissive. Think I’m starting to like this guy. “Just… do a good job.”

“The longer all that… stuff sits in my car, the more we’re at risk of someone finding it, so I need to go deal with that. Like… right now.” He cocked a thumb over his shoulder for emphasis, turning his body slightly.

“’Course.”

“So—” Dexter grabbed the plastic lining out of the trash can—empty—and held it out. “Put your clothes in there, and I’ll knock before I open the door with clean stuff. Shower, get dressed, and then just… try to take it easy, I guess. I’ll be back soon, hour at the most, forty-five minutes if I hurry—”

“Can I at least keep my underwear?”

“...I mean… yeah. If—if there’s no blood on it, I don’t care. That’s all I care about, blood, anything else is… of no concern to me.” Was that a joke? It was probably a joke. He knows I meant he could keep it and he was trying to make the situation lighter, because that’s what people do when they’re worried and don’t know what to do, or how to cope with something. It’s a normal thing to do. “Just empty your pockets, I don’t wanna end up taking your wallet or something out with the rest of it.”

A thumbs up.

He shut the door behind him and rummaged around in his dresser for something he could live without. Leaving someone in his apartment alone was maybe the most distasteful event of the night, but the alternatives weren’t great: leave the corpse in his car even longer than he already had, intact, wasting time. Drop him off at the hotel dirty, covered in blood, maybe with evidence under his fingernails. Call a taxi, have a new witness with a memory of this man leaving his apartment, pale as a ghost, wearing strange clothes. Worst of all, bring him along to get rid of the body.

He’ll have to stay put here for a little bit, then I can get him out of here. It’ll be over.

He just needed to brief him after his shower, give him a final once-over following the destruction of the rest of the evidence. Then he’d be home free.

He pulled his own shirt off. Better if I don’t go back out looking like this.

~~~

How did I get here?

The mirror looked back at him with tired eyes, heavy bags traced with blackish-brown tracks of dried blood from a dead man. Technically, a dead man’s blood wasn’t a new fluid for him to handle, but he’d never been responsible for it before – and it had never gotten everywhere.

He pulled his soiled undershirt off and dropped it in the bag like the stranger asked.

At least I’m in a bathroom if I feel like I have to throw up, this time.

He should’ve known better. Met a man for a half hour and already heading home with him, what was he thinking? Just because he was far from L.A. didn’t mean he was far from consequences – no one here knew him, but ‘not hiding’ wasn’t supposed to translate to… this.

And now that man was dead.

But he’d deserved it right?

If that stranger was right, his date had killed five people before him, and then tried to kill David, too. It was self-defense.

And the cleaning everything up, that was self-defense, too. Even if the courts wouldn’t see it that way.

Then why does it feel so… awful?

Almost strangled to death on a strange man’s bedroom floor. Coming back from what was supposed to be a business trip in Dad’s place turned tropical vacation with a shiny news story stapled to his back that let the whole of Los Angeles know that he, David Fisher, was fishing for some ass in a gay bar in Miami. He couldn’t even imagine to begin the fallout – sure, he’d tell them some day, but like that?

Mom’s head would explode.

Not to mention the scale of the fuss they’d make of the whole thing. It was a much lesser point, but they’d treat him like a Fabergé egg, suddenly too delicate to even breathe around. He knew his family; this would be a ‘horrible tragedy,’ and he’d have to put up with the endless promptings about how he’s doing, if they can help, if he wants to talk about it when all he really wanted was to forget the entire thing even happened. Plus, one of them would inevitably say he never would’ve had to go through that if he had been ‘more careful’, which really just meant if he wasn’t gay. Probably Mom, out of the three of them. Nate might be fine with it, God knows what he’s doing.

It was best then. If the words of his mysterious saviour were to be believed, this would drag out for all eternity and cause a big stink that neither of them needed. He’d probably be stuck in Miami for a while when Dad really needed him back at the business to help with the annual summer peak of death.

Not to mention the indelible stain of ‘killed a potential lay that tried to strangle him’ following him for the rest of his life—if the police even believed him. Better just to be quiet.

And back to that mystery man—a total stranger that had yet to even say his name, let alone explain what he was doing there. Part of him would rather never talk about it again, and part of him needed to know why his life was saved.

We should’ve gone to the police. It was a bad man doing bad things that was stopped in a moment of panic, so what if they covered it up? So what if they had a case of justifiable homicide, and then did a whole slew of other crimes on top that would not call under jusitfiable homicide? So what if he let some total stranger talk him into covering up the fact that they killed someone—

“Knock-knock.”

David struggled not to flinch at the reappearance of the other mirror. He opened the door a crack, still in his boxer briefs, and grabbed the towel and clothes as they were passed through.

“Bag?”

“Everything but my essentials.” He put the trash bag in the outstretched hand, a little pained to give up his favourite slacks, no matter how stained.

“Okay. Again, I won’t be gone too long. I’ll take care of this, and when I get back, we can talk and get you to bed.”

The sooner he was back at the hotel, the sooner he could forget all this. “Can’t I just leave when I’m done? I’m not helpless, I can get back on my own.”

“We should really talk before we part ways.”

“Can’t we just talk now​? Save ourselves the trouble?”

“I’ve gotta think about what we’re gonna talk about.” The sliver of a face through the door pulled a very slight expression, like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. He seemed like he did that pretty often.

“Fine.”

“Just wash up. You can use my soaps and all that, just don’t touch anything. The TV’s in the main room. The kitchen’s attached, just… don’t touch anything you don’t have to.”

“I get the picture. I’m a stranger, not a heathen. I’m not gonna snoop.” Sounds like a man with things to hide—maybe we’ve got more in common than just looks.

“Good, then.” Lingering. David of course had no measure of normal behaviour for this man, but right now, he was constantly aloof and stepping on his own tongue. “Enjoy your shower.”

“It’ll be a thrill a minute, I’m sure.”

A slight expression again – this one looking more like a smile than embarrassment. “I’ll lock up behind me, so don’t worry about anyone coming in.” The door started closing.

“Wait—”

“Can you tell me your name?”

A long silence. Furrowed brow. What did he have to think so hard about?

“...after everything, it just—I mean, you know mine, so I think—”

“Dexter.”

“It’s Dexter.”

I… don’t know if I’ve ever heard that name. Did he just give me a fake name?

“Make sure you get behind your ears, and scrub under your fingernails the best you can.”

‘Dexter’ clicked his tongue, and shut the door the rest of the way. Hurried steps sounded, and the outer door opened and shut without fanfare.

Sigh.

Scrubbing took ages. A new little red snake would slither out with water each time he thought he’d gotten everything, squirming out from his navel, specks on his face traveling down his neck and chest, even on his hands—by the third rinse he figured he must’ve been imagining the whole thing. He was no stranger to the deceptively meek appearance of blood compared to the gigantic mess it would make once disturbed, but having it on him…

Well, he was thankful ‘Dexter’ was going to be gone a while.

After drying, he wrinkled his nose a bit at having to put his already-worn underwear back on, but pushed down the thought by considering he was already anticipating doing that tonight anyway—although for a much more fun reason. Next came some gingham lounge pants that looked like they’d never been worn—

Why did he give me gingham? Do I look like a gingham kind of guy to him?

—and then the t-shirt. It was soft, black, and had a decal of a stylized skeleton on the front, traced in yellow, bones black. Any scrap of information he could glean about his accomplice was something to be considered, but something told him this ‘Smash’ shirt was a gift of some kind—the creases of being folded up and left in a drawer ran deep, forming a frame around the bright white letters of ‘OFFSPRING’ at the top, and he probably never wore it.

So he intends me to keep this stuff, then.

He left the bathroom, slipping the shirt over his head. The apartment really was immaculate—a welcome respite from the chaos and mess of the night in every respect. Very plain, very simple. A controlled clutter splayed on the bookshelf that made an artificial partition and broke up the space, a photograph of a happy family under the A/C—a man, a woman, and two kids, probably ‘Dexter’ with a sister or cousin and parents at the beach.

I’m not supposed to be snooping.

David’s eyes drew to the closed curtains, waiting for something, anything to happen.

I’m...I’m just looking at what’s already in plain sight.

He glanced across the desk, nudging the chair out of the way gently. An adult ‘Dexter’ smiled at him, pulled a little to one side, somewhat awkward and unsure about getting his picture taken. The woman next to him seemed a lot more comfortable showing her teeth than he did, a little bashful but smiling wide. A girlfriend?

...if its serious enough for her picture to sit on his desk every day, they’d live together, and a woman is not living in this bachelor pad.

Probably the grown up version of the little girl in the family portrait, and he’s close enough to her that he’s made himself face her every time he sits at his desk.

So he’s not a complete loner.

He spun in the chair, facing a corner-table with the probably-father from the group photo, this time done up professionally in police attire. Works with the police, son of a police officer—maybe he wasn’t just deluding himself when he told David everything would work out. He might actually have the know-how.

Getting out of the chair, he strolled casually back to the bookshelf, looking more closely at the large flasks, the photo of the same young girl holding a cat, the books on programming languages. A normal assortment, if a little basic overall. The man that lived in this apartment did not seem capable of taking a simple wineglass stem and stabbing a man in the neck just the wrong way.

Stop thinking about it.

Nothing else remarkable—various nautical decorations, like a driftwood lamp and a painting of sailboats. Things you’d expect someone living right on the coast to collect over the years, no matter their own particular style.

He finished his examination by sitting on the couch, tilting his head back with a sigh. The rush of adrenaline had carried him this far, but it was letting go of his hand now, releasing him to collapse in an exhausted pile across the cushions, shutting his eyes and leaving him for dead. The quiet hum of the A/C unit was the only sound in the entire apartment, no noise reflected by the hardwood floor, no whispers of waves just a dozen yards away. Even the fridge was quiet—he’d call it peaceful, under different circumstances. This man lived a calm life.

Simple existence. No death, no drama, just work and family and warm weather, and the sea. Could almost be home.

“None’ve this would’ve happened if you’d kept it to yourself.”

David’s eyes flung open, looking at the chair by the sofa to see the speaker. He stared coldly, face smeared with red and neck still leaking, still running, still dripping all over the hardwood, pooling, spreading, drenching his shirt, bubbling with each dead rattle of breath, pit-pattering—

The ghost gestured with the ink-smeared wineglass stem, jabbing it towards David for emphasis, making the man crawl backwards. “He should’ve left you to me, done us all a favour.”

“You—you killed others, you killed five people, you tried to kill six, and you can’t do it anymore—”

“Don’t try and play a hero, like you did something good, something noble. You can’t lie to me.”

A pencil cup on the table next to him. He grabbed out a pair of scissors, holding them out in defense.

“You better pray that he’s good at cleaning up after fuckups, or you’ll’ve ruined someone else’s life, too, all cause you couldn’t control yourself.

“Or is He even taking your calls anymore? Not after this, surely, even if he might’ve had pity on your sorry-ass before.” He tilted his head more life pouring out from the hole in his throat, making the uncomfortable plit-plat of wet spattering against wet.

“Should’ve told him to leave and taken the fall for it yourself. Owned up to it all—it was all your fault, after all.”

“You’re the killer. It’s—it wasn’t my—you were killing him, too—”

“You’re the one with blood on your hands.” The phantom stood, slouching over on dead, unsteady legs. David backed as far as he could into the corner of the couch, cringing away as he got closer, leaning down to whisper in his ear and spilling cold and sticky death all over the fresh shirt, down his chest, down his stomach, spattering his face as he spoke. “You’re the killer here, David.”

“Stay away from me—” Scissors abandoned with a clatter to the floor, he compressed wholly against the armrest, trying to breathe through his mouth to avoid the black stench of rot.

“Make me.”

An icy finger stroked the length of his jaw, making him flinch. All he could manage was a thin wail in defiance, a sound so quiet that he wasn’t sure if it even came out.

“God, you are such a pussy. Couldn’t even do it yourself, had to get someone else to do it for you, and now you can’t even look at me.” The finger left. “I don’t know what the hell I saw in you that made me take your sorry ass anywhere, let alone back to my own home. You looked so pathetic, I just figured no one would miss you—and I was right, of course but then you had to go and ruin our night together—”

“This is not happening,” with the most disgust and bile he could manage, baring his teeth with the words. David turned his head away, shaking it, eyes shut tight and blocking out all light. His heart beat in his ears, set like a marathon runner, drowning out the rattle of the A/C and the bubbling of death in the neck a few inches from his face. Everything felt cold, and wet, and too-close. His skin prickled and his hair stood on end, hands only prevented from trembling by being pressed firmly into his knees.

Thump thump thump.

Thump thump thump.

Thump thump thump.

No bubbling.

He opened his eyes a crack, then fully.

No more smell of violent death. No more mess down the front of him, shirt only wet with sweat, now. No ghost in the chair, or hovering over him, whispering bitter nothings into his ear, specking his face in darkening, putrid death. No Oliver drowning him in his own sin.

Just the A/C hum.

He pulled his legs in close to his chest, shutting his wet eyes tightly, burying his nose in the nook between his knees.

God, please, forgive me. Forgive me my transgressions, take some of this weight from my shoulders and walk alongside me, let me rest, please, I—I can’t take this—

Inhale, exhale. Deep breaths. He refused to sit here and sob alone in a strangers apartment—he would maintain some of his dignity, however little.

And—and please, keep… keep Dexter safe with… whatever he’s doing right now. He doesn’t deserve any of this.

David grabbed for the remote, sick of the quiet. He flipped it to anything but the news and let the volume drown out the silence and the echoes of the dying man’s gurgles. He’d much rather physical company right now, but the illusion of people on a screen was better than sitting alone.

He grasped a throw pillow and hugged it close. Dexter would be back soon.

~~~

The cool night air kissed the skin on the back of Dexter’s neck as he climbed out of the car, rain drops failing as gentle mist, slowly making him heavier by tiny increments. For the first time since the hunt began, he didn’t mind how damp the night had been. It was actually pretty decent out, all things considered—and rain was better than the ever-constant hot, sticky humidity. He could feel relief taking the weight from his shoulders with each pace towards his apartment, each blink to shake the collecting droplets off his eyelashes.

With all evidence of Oliver Beaumont resting at the bottom of a trench, the only real evidence of tonight sat as a little drop of blood under glass in his pocket, soon to be placed inside the polished wooden box with the rest of his oldest friends.

Glad not to have a body on my hands anymore. Makes it easy to think.

That was all that was left, really. An eyewitness could be very persuasive to a jury, but you couldn’t build a case on testimony alone. Sure, if David went and squealed now, people would be rooting around in Dexter’s personal life far more than he’d like, but they wouldn’t find anything—and he’d be on the inside of the investigation the whole way. Suspicion would then turn to David himself when they found out Mr. Beaumont really was missing, and then he’d have to explain his role in all this. Even if he got the idea to turn himself in from the start, he’d still have to work hard to convince the police that he’d ever met Oliver, let alone that both he and Dexter were ever in that house.

David would keep his mouth shut. And if he didn’t, any chance of it going anywhere was currently being nipped at by curious fish. Nothing more than a case of he-said-she-said.

Or he-said-he-said, I guess.

He climbed the steps yet again, running over what to say to the man as he plucked out the key to his front door.

Still, this can’t happen again. I got off easy with finding someone that didn’t insist on going to the cops before I cleaned things up, I can’t bank on getting that lucky again.

The tumblers turned, the door opened.

The TV was on, and the only difference in the entryway was his desk chair being a little turned. Kept his hands to himself.

He took a deep breath as he rounded the shelving, readying himself for a calmed and cleaned witness to drown him in questions about the body, about the night, about what he did, and found…

A sleeping man.

A sleeping man still sitting up, hugging a pillow and gripping a pair of scissors in one hand. He couldn’t exactly blame the man; Dexter didn’t feel fear, it wasn’t in his nature, but the human body doesn’t care about emotions when it starts pumping your body full of adrenaline when it thinks you’re on the precipice of death. Dexter told him to wash up, gave him pajamas, told him to take it easy, all the while the crash was looming over his head. Of course he dozed off.

And I’m guessing he was still spooked, based on the scissors. Not spooked enough to get a knife from the kitchen, though.

“David?” He snapped his fingers.

No response. Figured that would be the case – the TV was on, after all.

“David.” He rounded the coffee table, pressing down on the cushion with his hand.

Still nothing – must’ve been a very hard crash.

“Dave, wake up.” Mm, no, Dave’s too casual. “You fell asleep.”

Still sleeping. Not even a stir.

Dexter grasped the scissors gently and slipped them from the sleeping man’s grip—if he’s scared, I don’t want him armed when I touch him—and set them back in the pencil cup.

A very, very gentle nudge on the shoulder. “David.”

One sleepy eye opened a crack, the other following quickly. One strong blink, a spine suddenly straight and a hand automatically reaching out to push at Dexter’s chest, away, away, panic, fear – and then relaxation.

“You’re—” More strong blinks. Rubbing his face. Trying to wake up. “You’re back.”

“Mhm. Mornin’.”

“It’s morning?” The panic came back in a flash.

Dexter stumbled on his words, “no! No, just… ‘cause you were asleep. I guess it’s... technically morning, but the sun isn’t up, so most people would still say it’s nighttime.”

No verbal response to that, just a tired man scratching the back of his head and ruffling up his hair, trying to be alert. He was obviously exhausted—physically, from the struggle, mentally, probably from wrestling with guilt or some other normal response to this kind of thing… probably emotionally, too…

“The sun will be up soon, though.”

“That’s my cue, then.” David unfolded his legs, wincing at the probable cramping after having them bunched up under himself. Poor guy probably dozed off as soon as he got on the couch, and now he’d be lumbering his way into a hotel room, wearing a stranger’s clothes and looking like a ghost.

Not to mention they still had to talk, and the guy looked ready to pass out standing up. Eyes baggy, face the picture of misery—he looked like shit.

And it’s my fault. Well, at least half my fault, I’m not the one that tried to strangle him.

“I know you wanna get back to your hotel, but…” He should really just go back to sleep. I don’t want to have him in my apartment any longer than I need to, but what’s the point in saving his life and doing all this if I just send him off into the world like this? “You can just sleep here if you want, get back to everything in the morning.”

“No, I—I’ve already taken up enough of your time, I don’t need to take advantage any more.” David pushed the pillow aside lethargically, sitting up to stand.

What the hell happened while I was out, why’re we suddenly thankful? “You’re not taking advantage of anything if I’m offering.”

That’s what was different; David had stopped making eye contact. Why, Dexter couldn’t begin to speculate—shame was looking most likely, and there were plenty of other justifications—but it was definitely different from before.

“You go and take the bed, I’ll take the couch.”

“I can’t put you out like that—”

“No, it’s, uh…” It’s just that I have all my friends in the air conditioner by the door, and I want you to be as far away from them as possible. What can I say to him… “You’re the guest. You get the good place to sleep.”

He still looked guilty. The scissors… maybe one more push.

“Besides, the couch is closer to the door.”

“Just saying… after tonight, you look pretty scared, maybe you’ll sleep better if you’re not right by the front door. Since… it’s an entrance.”

Slow, slow, sleepy nodding of understanding, looking more embarrassed now. Maybe that’s what the eye contact was about, embarrassment. Regardless, his sudden urge not to be a bother seemed overtaken by his inability to put up a fight from exhaustion.

“Come on.” He grabbed David by the wrist, pulling him up off the couch and towards the bedroom. It was still dark in there, and he didn’t bother with the lights—why turn them on when he’s just going to turn them off again right away?

“You don’t have to hold my hand, I’m not a toddler.”

“You look ready to fall asleep at the wheel, your eyes aren’t even open all the way.”

“Mmh.” No clue what that means, David.

“If you just gimme a second, I’ll get some fresh sheets—”

“Normally,” David paused briefly to start a yawn, talking halfway through, “I’d really like the sound of that, but I think I’d rather just… climb in.”

“...you’re sure?” If it were me, I wouldn’t want to sleep in someone’s unwashed sheets.

“The rest of your place is clean enough that I’m guessing you’re not someone to go weeks and weeks without washing your bedding, I’ll take my chances.” He was already pulling out of Dexter’s grasp and crawling onto the bed like he owned it.

“...suit yourself, then.” He turned and stationed himself by the door, holding the knob and watching David push the extra pillows to one side lazily before flopping down. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

“Mmh-mmh.”

“Goodnight. David.”

“Mhm.”

---

Sleeping on the couch was a one-way ticket to a day of twinges in every possible joint. Even now, hovering over the sizzling pan of messy, perfectly-cooked eggs, Dexter rolled his shoulders back and twisted, wincing.

He didn’t know a lot about hosting someone in his apartment—in fact, the only person he could ever remember coming over was Deb, and she slept til noon on most occasions, but he still knew that you were usually supposed to make them something to eat in the morning. Thus far, breakfast had been a never-ending slew of questions that he couldn’t answer, things like ‘does David drink coffee’ and ‘how does he like his eggs’. For most of them, he defaulted to a filler response of doing what Dexter would want, but twice.

Most people would accept free food even if it wasn’t exactly what they wanted, solely because it was free, and in the case of something homemade, people would eat it because it was the ‘right thing to do’—a moral obligation to appreciate someone’s hard work. Unless David had a specific hatred for over-easy eggs and fried ham, he’d still eat.

I’ll have to stop by the store before the end of the week, then, I’ll be down a portion.

He flipped the eggs, careful not to split a yolk—do something every day, you get pretty good at it.

He perked at the sound of movement in the other room—perfect timing. Eggs got cold the fastest. As he carefully plated the pieces of the breakfast, he turned over what to say to the man he’d made cover up a murder, a man who almost died last night, a man that would be forever changed by what happened and may never feel truly safe again, a man that will be haunted for the rest of his life by what they did and what he saw.

David walked out of the bedroom, rubbing his eyes.

“Mornin’, sailor. For real this time.” Dexter flashed his best friendly smile, keeping the teeth hidden so he didn’t come off as too overbearingly happy—it was early, after all. “Sleep well?”

No response came. Dexter looked up from the coffee he was pouring and saw his bed-headed guest at him like he had two heads.

“You’re looking at me weird.”

“You’re… very chipper.”

Overdid it. “It’s—it’s a new day! Trying to start it with… a good outlook.” People say stuff like that, right?

“And breakfast.”

“Most important meal of the day, right?” He set the plate down on the counter, relishing a bit how easy it was to command people just by putting food in a specific seat. “How do you take your coffee?”

Another look. David sat. “Half-and-half with two Sweet n’ Low.”

Well… “I’ve got creamer? Or just sugar.”

“Creamer works— this is… very nice of you.”

“Is it?” He gave the creamer a sniff to make sure it hadn’t gone bad in the brief time it had been in the fridge, and poured some into the cup. “I don’t have a lot of people over, I thought this was pretty standard protocol.”

“I think standard for a stranger is… toast, or something. Quick stuff, easy stuff.” David stifled another yawn in his hand, watching Dexter carefully. The desperation had mostly gone, as had the deep suspicion from just after the deed; now he seemed to regard him like an animal at the zoo, an out-of-place creature he didn’t understand.

“Do you want toast?”

“No, I—I don’t want toast.”

“Okay. Cause I can make some, if you do.”

“I don’t want toast.”

Silence.

Dexter pulled his own stool around to be catty-corner rather than elbow-to-elbow and sat down, cutting into the ham. Cooked to perfection, still warm—just like every other morning. This was every other morning, even if he was sharing it with a stranger. He’d still get dressed, go to work, and have a normal day.

“It’s already dead, you know.”

“What?” At least David was making eye contact again, even if he was saying nonsense.

“You’re chewing like a dog with a tennis ball. You don’t have to kill it, it’s already dead.”

Guess I’m getting more of that mouth. He must be feeling better. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Just feels like your jaw is gonna get tired.”

“My jaw is fine.”

David cut a slice of ham off and dipped it in a yolk. At least he was eating— upset people either eat a lot, or they don’t eat at all. Guilt was usually one of those ‘not eating’ emotions, from what he’d seen—which was always a little funny to him, given the phrase ‘eating me up inside’.

Do I really chew weird? An automatic action suddenly became very, very deliberate, making him furrow his brow. He watched David chew a few bites, watching how wide he opened his mouth, punctuated by an efficient-but-soft comedown. And if I do, he noticed. Has everyone else noticed?

“So what’s so important that we talk about?”

Dexter had spent his life feigning ease, consequently making it easy to spot on his face. Not exactly his face, but close enough anyway. “Well… first, where are you from?”

“Isn’t this kind of thing usually better if we know less about each other?”

“You’re an expert on the topic of covering up a murder?” He peeked up from his plate at him with hooded eyes, lifting his brows at the corners.

“You certainly seem to be.”

“Hey, I’m just as new to this as you are.” A sip of coffee. “I just happen to work in a field where I know what the cops look for, so I can clean it up.”

The suspicion was returning, but slowly, and coated in something that seemed more snarky than serious. “I’m from L.A.”

He whistled. “Long way from home.”

“Yeah. Supposed to be a business-trip-slash-vacation, but—”

“Say no more.” He held up a hand. Luck yet again, he’s as far away from me as he can get without crossing an ocean. What better way to keep him and his mouth out of my business? “Least you’ll be far away from… well, all this.”

“I guess so.”

“Let’s start from the beginning.” He paused to look David straight in the eye, seeming to catch him off guard. “I want you to tell me what all you did before I showed up.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to know.” C’mon, we were getting along so well, don’t start being difficult now.

“I don’t see why it’s your business if you weren’t there for it.”

“You made it my business by ending up pinned down on Oliver Beaumont’s floor. I’m trying to help, here, I need to know if anyone could’ve seen you, if you told anyone where you were going—” he took a deep breath, trying and failing to keep the frustration from his voice, “—these things are important. What are you trying to keep secret from me? I already know why you went out last night, is there something you don’t want to tell me? Because if there is, if its anything illegal, I think we’re well passed keeping that kind of thing from each other—”

“No, I didn’t do anything illegal.” He was glaring now, and for a brief moment, Dexter understood how he unsettled people when he did that—such a heavy brow darkened the eyes well, making it sinister regardless of intent. Interesting.

“Then tell me.”

Dexter took a large bite as David put down his fork, sighing. “Fine. I went to a conference, sat around wanting to stick a fork in my eye for about half of it, and then went sightseeing to find all the interesting things I could do inside so I didn’t end up completely sunburnt. Headed back to my hotel room, got lonely, left to a bar.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Exactly how long were you out? Did you talk to anybody?” He shrugged slightly. “These things matter.”

“Well…” A big sigh. “Maybe a half hour? And I didn’t really talk to anyone other than the bartender—tried to get a conversation going with someone else, but he walked off.”

“How far did that conversation go?”

David shook his head dismissively. “Not even a minute, we didn’t get anywhere. Then—then Oliver sat down, and… most of the half hour was spent talking to him.”

“And?”

“And I went home with a stranger and he ended up dead, what else do you want me to say?”

“You still aren’t back in your hotel, you need an explanation for it.”

“So?”

“So you need an explanation for that. Look, if we missed something, if we get questioned by the cops, being secretive about what you did here will just make more people want to dig into it more,” Dexter swirled his coffee around in the cup. “I’ve learned the best way to sell a lie is to not lie at all. You just… trim it down. Tell the parts that sound nice and keep the rest to yourself. That way, you just have to remember what not to say, since remembering a lie for a prolonged length of time is the most common reason they fail.”

“And you learned this from, what, your job?”

Despite the skepticism and questions, it was a little interesting to be sharing trade secrets with someone, however limited. And now, because of his mistrust, he had the perfect setup to make an example without David even knowing; “I watch a lot of interrogations when it’s slow around the station.”

“So we’re copying criminals, now. Not exactly the best role models.”

“We are criminals now, David. Technically.” He gestured with a fork. “Only difference between us and them is we’re not gonna get caught.”

A nasty side-eye. Someone didn’t like facing reality.

“So, cop comes by, asks you what you did last night, what do you say?”

“The truth, apparently.”

“I was looking more… detailed, but its your first time, I’ll give you an example.” He ran over the details of the night again, quickly picking out the best-looking pieces; “you got a drink at a bar, went home with someone, and slept over at a guy’s apartment. Then he dropped you off at your hotel in the morning before he went to work.”

“And what’s your story, then?”

Dexter’s truth had already been ironed out and pristine by the time he put the pan on the stovetop. “I went out after work. Found a guy from a bar, he looked a little bit sickly and I was worried about him. Took him back to my apartment, put him up for the night. Dropped him back off at his hotel the next morning.”

Distrust. David was catching on to how good he was at it, how easy this all had been. He’s thinking there’s a catch for him… the catch is you, for me.

“And I’m sorry, officer, I didn’t get his name. Never really came up.” Dexter put the last bite on his tongue and picked up his plate, rinsing it in the sink. “You can say whatever you want to everyone else, but if the cops come sniffing around, tell them the truth. That truth.”

No questions, no comments, no rebukes. Just chewing. Thinking. Slow, thoughtful consideration.

Harry would be proud. Dexter had taken an absolute disaster and not only saved a life, but still got his kill, and was getting away with all of it. He allowed himself a small smile at the thought.

Then again… rule number one: don’t get caught. And I’ve also invariably scarred that man for life, considering most people don’t bounce back from almost dying and then seeing a man bleed to death without also getting a little damaged in the process.

He picked up the pan and started scrubbing.

A slight nudge at his elbow. He turned to see David there with his plate and utensils, reaching for the sponge.

“I’ll take care of that—”

“You cooked, I can clean my own dishes.”

The human condition would always be a partial mystery for Dexter, but he wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the idea of societal penance—that is, David probably felt some sort of debt or guilt, either for Dexter saving him or for David taking up space in his home, in his bed, so he wanted to do something of use to Dexter.

Why bother arguing, it’s just dishes.

“If you insist.” He relinquished the sponge and dried his hands. “Mind if I go get ready then?”

“Whatever you want.”

At the very least, that part of the morning remained completely unchanged. Shaving, flossing, brushing, getting dressed—no intrusions, nothing out of place, no accommodating a second person at the sink.

“Did you get rid of my shoes, too?”

David had sat himself at the counter with a book off the shelf. Getting more adventurous, which, while bad inside Dexter’s apartment, was good overall—recovery.

“Cause I don’t have a spare pair hidden anywhere, if that’s what you thought. And I kind of liked them.”

A little twinge in the bottom of his stomach, and his brow furrowed without his say-so. You know what they say about hindsight... “Sorry. Didn’t think about it when I got rid of the other stuff. I have some flip-flops you can wear, if that’ll work.”

A sigh. A quiet resignation was settling in for him, far from the snarky responses he had started with earlier.

“Sorry.”

“Just don’t make me walk on pavement barefoot again, it’s daytime and I want to keep the skin on my soles.” He waved his hand boredly, and sent Dexter back into his closet, returning with a pair of light grey flip-flops. He couldn’t remember the last time he wore them.

“These work?”

“They’ll work.” David slipped them on, wiggling his toes a bit as he slid off the stool. “You said you’re telling people you’re dropping me off before you go to work, is that what the bag’s for?”

“Uh—yeah. No this—” Dexter hovered a hand over his side bag, flashing another goofy-looking smile. It was time to start shifting into Dexter Morgan, Lab Geek. “This has nothing to do with us. I just—work.”

More of that depressed nodding from earlier. David wasn’t going to ask his next question, but he wanted to know—it was easy to read on his face. Maybe because Dexter saw so much of himself reflected back, or maybe he was just an easy man to understand, but he was clearly looking for some kind of connection here.

“I do… blood spatter analysis.”

“...what—”

“Lab geek, I work in the lab for the police.”

“...you don’t look the type.”

“I don’t?” I guess Vince has me beat there, he’s got glasses and everything.

“No. You clearly go outside.”

“Well…” He doesn’t go outside. Does that mean he looks ‘the type’? “Don’t know what you want me to say to that.”

“I guess it—” David put a hand through his hair, resting it at the back of his neck. “I guess that makes a little more sense. You don’t—you don’t seem like a detective or something.”

“So I don’t look like a lab geek, but I don’t look like a detective, either.”

“No.”

“So what do I look like?”

“Fuck if I know.”

“Alright. Well uh—what do you do?” He held the door open for him. That was what you did, right? You asked people the same questions they asked you, and that means you know each other better?

“Funeral director.”

Ah. So that’s why he knew how to handle a body. “Sounds… fun.”

“Ha-ha. What, you stare at blood all day, stuck in a lab? You’re not any better.”

Sore spot. “Hey, I just don’t know many funeral directors.” He glanced over his shoulder as they walked down the stairs. “Or any, I guess. Or anyone from L.A.”

“And I don’t know any… blood spatter analysts. I don’t even know any cops.”

“I’m not a cop.”

“So I will continue not knowing any cops.”

The drive itself was mostly quiet – a request to roll down the window by David, a complaint of traffic by Dexter, quiet music on the radio, and silence.

It was something Dexter didn’t like to see, this previously well-dressed man quietly stewing out the window in too-casual attire. He couldn’t feel his pain, but it was easy to notice even still. Once again the circuit started up again, visiting all the worst moments, spurred on double time by the scruffier face and messier hair now reflecting an even closer face to his own;

If he had been born human, he could imagine going down that kind of path. Normal job, if a little ‘creepy’ to those unfamiliar or uncomfortable with death. Set out on a business trip, goes out at night longing for a connection—something all people seemed to want, from his observations. In this scenario, the connection he wants is with another man, which would make it a lot harder, but not impossible. He finds someone who seems nice, charming, probably tried some kind of flattery like saying he ‘couldn’t hope for a better photography subject’, if Oliver was in the habit of reusing lines.

Dexter would’ve said yes when asked if he wants to get out of here, because he would—he’d’ve found the connection he wanted. They’d go back to the stranger’s house. They’d have a glass of wine and a fine time, and then the nice man from the bar would attack him. Tackle him off the bed, maybe, make him drop his wineglass and break it. No one would know where he was because his entire social network is back in L.A., if he even had one to begin with. He’d be dying on that floor, body never found, no one ever knowing what happened to him.

All of a sudden, the man would let go. A second stranger, apparently having heard a commotion, had come in to save him—he would’ve yanked the guy from the bar off, only to then be choked out himself, now in the same spot Dexter would’ve been in a second ago. This person saved him, and he was watching them die. He would then panic and kick over the broken wine glass, and watch as the newcomer made brutal use of it; instead of just swiping at his attacker to cut him and scare him away, the stem would be driven deep into the flesh of his neck, cutting vital cords and sending Oliver reeling backwards.

Then, the suddenly desperate attacker pulls the shard out of his neck and grabs at his first prey, spilling blood all over him, coughing it into his face, armed but rapidly fading. The newcomer protects him by making it all so much worse, pulling the bleeding man’s hair and yanking him like a Pez dispenser, dumping what little hope of recovery and life that remained all into Dexter’s lap.

He shook his head, turning his blinker on. Little too easy to visualize.

Most people got upset when they killed someone, even in self-defense—Dexter grew up around and worked with far too many cops not to have learned that. They were hard to comfort like that, it seemed, little remedy coming from anything other than the bottom of a bottle.

Talking about it seemed to help, though.

“This is me.” David looked with resignation at the hotel before them.

“Should hope so, this is the only Hampton on Biscayne.” Dexter watched David unbuckle his seatbelt. “I think there’s a Hilton a little bit down that way, though.”

“Looking forward to brushing my teeth.”

Damn. Didn’t think about that, I could’ve let him use the spare in the closet. “Sorry about that.”

“You’ve done enough, really. Thanks for the ride. And the—the rest. All of that.”

“Don’t mention it.” A smile, and David returned one—maybe he’d really, really be okay.

The door opened, David began sliding out,

But what if he isn’t?

“Wait—”

“What?”

Dexter fumbled in his glove box, chafing against the seatbelt strap and getting out a piece of scrap paper—receipt, probably for food of some kind, he didn’t care much what was on it—and a pen. “I know you’re only here temporarily, but while you’re in Miami, if you need to… talk.”

“Talk?”

Ten digits scribbled across the back. “It’s—I’ve seen what this kind of stuff does to people. At work, I mean. I don’t want that to happen… to you.”

David regarded the folded slip of paper held out between Dexter’s fingers with caution. “And you’re not worried about you?”

“Bah, I’ve got—I’ve got a sister and some friends around me, I’ve got people I can be around and be comfortable. You’re alone here.”

“It’s not forever.”

“You fell asleep with scissors in your hand in an empty room.”

“Go on, it’s not gonna bite you.”

Finally, finally he took the slick paper from between Dexter’s middle and index finger. “Don’t expect a call.”

“Just in case, just in case. Besides, gives me a little comfort knowing you’ve got someone in Miami that you know.” Also means you’re more likely to come to me instead of try and talk to the police.

“Kind of.”

“Better than a stranger.”

A little nod. David held out his hand.

“Oh—” Dexter took it. “Goodbye, David.”

“Fisher.”

“...you’re a funeral director.”

He looked a little incredulous. “David Fisher.”

“...right.” Yeah, that’s my mistake. “Morgan.”

“Goodbye, Dexter Morgan.”

One firm handshake, and he slipped out the door.

Dexter watched him vanish into the still-early sunlight, holding phone and wallet in his hands, flip-flops flip-flopping with each step. Back to continue what was hopefully the worst vacation of his life—almost dying and hiding a man’s manslaughter was a pretty good way to ruin a trip, and hopefully it would never sink lower for David.

A little part of him wished he could talk with him more—hearing his own voice reflected back, suddenly expressive, suddenly emotive, had grown on him more and more, and he’d almost started to get used to seeing this more shut-in version of himself. He’d never gotten to share a kill outside of chasing a victim out in front of traffic, and a little part of him relished having someone in on his secret again, however minorly. No one alive had seen him killing, and he couldn’t deny the slight thrill.

But, there was work to get to. It was best they stayed apart, to seem like strangers to each other. He pulled away and out of the parking lot, pulling down the sun visor as he checked his watch.

Still have time to grab donuts.

Notes:

all hail serpercival for being the best beta reader i could ask for yet again.

heres the announcement post with some of their comments because theyre funny as fuck

we're gonna do at least one more chapter lads. i want them to keep hanging out. also i kinda wanna have them bond and the idea of deb going 'first of all how did you find You But Gay and befriend him, second of all how do you have a friend at all' is funny to me. anyway

Chapter 3: The Food is to Die for, Really

Summary:

David calls Dexter while he's out at a crime scene after saying he wouldn't talk to him again.

Notes:

boy im still goin strong lets keep this train rolling for now

In the United States, there are at least fifteen thousand murders every year—that’s more than forty brutal, man-made deaths every single day. Over five murders per hundred thousand people. The thing was, most of them were committed by someone that the victim knew, as was the case for most violent crimes—the ‘nefarious wayfaring stranger’ narrative was something mostly relegated to the silver screen, but that never stopped the general public from double locking their doors and getting off the street before midnight. Nobody wants to believe that they’ve let a monster into their social circle.

Murders came in every shape. Poisonings, if they had any flair. Drownings, if they really didn’t care. Stabbings, shootings, stranglings. Arsons on occasion. Vehicular homicide, murder by projectile, murder by improvised weapon—proxy murder, murder-suicide, suicide by cop. Fratricide, patricide, matricide, sororicide—filicide, parricide, matiricide, uxoricide, and even familicide—or what family annihilators did, if it wasn’t obvious.

One of the daily forty lay before him, splayed out on his stomach in a wide, dark pond of his own pooled blood. His green-backed floral shirt had split under the weapon that killed him, showing through to the gashes dug deep enough to reach his ribs from behind. Obviously, back wounds meant he was trying to get away—so he saw it coming, but not fast enough to avoid a fatal hit to his neck in front, resulting in the iron lake he now swam in, as well as the trail he’d followed from the bedroom.

He glanced again around the house he stood in, camera in hand. The livingroom was pristine, if not for the body—apparently, it wasn’t just he and David Fisher contributing to the national average last night. Thankfully, whoever would be trying to sell this place after they were done could at least take solace in that they wouldn’t have to recarpet—it was all hardwood.

People had a weird thing about death. Just knowing that it had happened anywhere near them always set them on edge, even if the memory of it in the floorboards had long been expunged. A life had ended, and people saw it as a bad omen, their usual reverence for the deceased not quite eclipsing their disgust for rotting tissue. A person became a thing, but not in the way it did for him, where they were just meat; they saw it as wickedness.

I wonder where a funeral director would stand on this.

“Dexter.”

He suppressed a sigh as he turned to the speaker, letting his camera hang by its strap as he slipped his hands into his pockets, a pleasant grin smeared on his face. Part of acting human meant dealing with people he found irritating with patience and grace—he’d found that over-doing the ‘patience’ part usually had fewer consequences than under-doing it, and he should err on the side of caution.

Especially if the consequences could impact his job. “What’ve you got for me?”

The sooner I’m into it, the sooner I’m out of it. “Just what the blood says.”

“And what does it say?” The soft smile from his boss tested his patience and grace. It was better than when they started working together, when she bristled and thought him creepy—just as her former partner still did—and he surely appreciated that she listened when he spoke now, but pivoting directly towards a human resources violation wasn’t great, either. Do we even have an HR department?

“The attack probably started there, in the bedroom—” Dexter slipped around LaGuerta and the other officers on scene, watching them part to let him through. It was nice, having built up enough reputation that people gave him space and let him work. “The victim is dressed, so he most likely wasn’t sleeping. The attacker struck first here, by the nightstand, hitting a major artery, based on the arterial spurting on the bed here, and here—”

He could see the scene perfectly in his head as he pointed, but he hadn’t been asked that yet. Some people saw his fine-tuned killer instinct as a helpful tool, and at other times, the same people would see it as creepy.

“There’s contact patterns on the bedspread as well, most likely from our victim, meaning he touched his own wound before trying to balance himself on the bed. If you’ll look up at the ceiling, and over on that adjacent wall there, you’ll see castoff patterns, most consistent with a large, swinging weapon—” He demonstrated helpfully, miming the act of chopping wood. “The victim was facing away, at this point, and tried escaping, heading for the living room—that’s, ah, from the trail of arterial gushing leaving the room, and the directionality of the tails on the few single blood drops along it.”

He carefully stepped over the slick surface, not wanting to ruin his shoes. His boss followed. “There’s also swipe patterns here on the doorframe and the wall, which—I mean, you can see how much this trail goes back and forth, and howmuch bloodloss there is. He’s not steady on his feet.

“He gets to the livingroom, and the suspect catches up to him—” He turns, facing the body on the floor, holding his imaginary weapon. “They take more swings at him—” again, helpfully demonstrating, “—at least four, five times. Some while he was still standing, some already on the floor. There’s a wipe pattern here through the pooled blood, so he must’ve held out long enough to try and crawl away, at least a little.”

“Anything else?” LaGuerta crossed her arms, leaning on one foot.

Dexter quickly looked up, extending a finger. “More castoff patterns up there, and I found a few smudges on the doorknob to the garage. And, if you look closely—” He hopped over a wayward leg from the victim, headed towards the door before crouching low to the ground, getting on his knees.

She didn’t follow his lead, given that she was wearing a skirt. He didn’t mind. “What is it?”

“Footprints.” He smiled—it was always satisfying to do a job well. “They lead all the way to the garage, and then they stop.”

“Nicely done, Dexter.” He lifted from the floor. Even if it was probably slightly disingenuous praise, it was still appreciated. “Now tell me the story.”

Don’t know why you couldn’t just ask from the beginning. The painted grin became real, excited: “I observed slight beveled margins on the wounds of the victim, which works with the blood to communicate that the murder weapon was something curved on the end, and heavy—most likely an axe. Big, cumbersome weapon, and no one’s first choice—a weapon of opportunity. I would guess that there was an argument between the victim and the perpetrator in the bedroom, and the suspect went to the garage, probably to leave the house. In the garage, they saw an axe, and, still enraged, changed their mind. They took it, went back inside, and struck the victim.

“They paused, looking at the reality of what they did, only coming back to the situation when the victim was getting away. Whether driven by an urge to kill them or just not be caught, they gave chase, finding him in the livingroom and going for the phone. They struck again, and again, and again until the victim stopped moving. They panicked, didn’t notice they’d stepped in his blood pool, and hurried to leave, taking the axe with them.”

“An axe. Don’t get to see that every day.”

“Ah… no, ma’am.” Such a simple word, but so deliciously layered; in one motion, he was both showing his boss proper respect and further establishing the professional distance between them, as well as the different age brackets. “Like I said, this was a crime of opportunity. If the perpetrator had been in the kitchen when deciding to attack him, we’d probably have a body with knife wounds instead.”

“Right.” She chuckled a bit at that—was that funny? “Can you tell us anything about our suspect?”

“Well—” Dexter took a deep breath. He’d been talking a little too excitedly. “Whoever they are, they probably have at least average upper body strength to swing an axe so many times in quick succession—the axe does most of the work, as long as you can get it up there. Hard to tell based on the wounds, but—”

He paused. The man on the ground seemed around six foot, maybe a little less. So did the detective currently turned away from him, chattering with one of the officers just outside the front door.

Dexter stepped forward, holding his imaginary axe. He lifted onto his toes, holding a sideways-facing hand out straight where the head would be as he swung down, burying his gloved fingers into the back of his victim stand-in.

The spine he dug his axe into jumped away from him, back arching like ice had dropped down the back of his shirt.

“Sorry, Angel.” He smiled and received a light push on the shoulder with a grin before the detective turned back to his conversation, anger nullified upon seeing the face of his friend. I still don’t understand when that happened. “I would say the directionality and placement of the wounds is consistent with someone my size, so… five-ten, five-eleven.”

“Most likely a man, then.”

“That would make sense. Average male height is around there.”

“Or a woman in heels.” LaGuerta’s eyes found his again, blinking softly.

“Well, I’ve never tried to swing an axe while wearing heels, but I’d imagine it would be pretty difficult.” Her slight smile faltered. “Then again, I’ve seen some with those big, thick heels, those might provide enough support. Or—or it could just be a tall woman.”

“An average man or a tall woman.”

“Would be my guess. Tall woman might give us a lead on a scorned lover—” There’s David, he’s my height. “I guess so could an average man. An axe does communicate strong emotion here, though—it’s not a quick stab or a quick shot, it’s several slow, heavy swings. I’d start with someone that knows him.”

She nodded thoughtfully, glancing down at the man on the ground. “It’s a shame, isn’t it?”

She’s looking for something from me. “Yep.”

Glad I’m not inclined to give it, ‘cause I don’t know what it is.

“I’ll poke around and see if I can see anything else, but I think I’ve already looked at—” Vibration in his right pocket. He fished it out wordlessly, looking at the numbers without recognition. Might be important. “At everything—I gotta take this, one second.”

With a handwave from LaGuerta, he shimmied his way back through the throng and out the front door, lightly jogging beyond the gaggle of officers securing the scene from rubberneckers in the neighbourhood and stopping at his car.

“Morgan.”

“Oh, good, I wasn’t sure if that was a five or a six, you really need to pick up your pen a little more.” His own voice sounded out of the speaker, snapping him to attention.

“David?”

“You said to call you if I wanted to talk.”

“...well, yeah, but it—” He checked his watch, hand splayed. “It’s barely noon, I dropped you off half after six, that’s—”

“I know, I know.” A begrudging sigh on the other end. “And I said I wouldn’t call you. But here I am.”

“You’re really good at quick turnarounds.”

“I can also hang up.” The not-quite-yet six hours had not softened him up enough to accept jokes yet, then. “I woke up about an hour ago. Are—are you busy?”

“I’m at a scene right now, but I’m—”

“You’re at a crime scene right now?”

“...yes, that’s... part of my job. If I’m gonna sit in a lab all day, I kind of need to collect things to examine in it, first.

“Why’d you even pick up? Is… is it—”

“No, no. Just some axe murder in the suburbs.” He couldn’t deny his own appreciation for the dramatic, and using an axe was certainly a little impressive, but it also just seemed… cliché. Overdone, overplayed. ‘Axe-murderer’ had become it’s very own noun.

“’Just some axe murder,’ you sound like me.” A dry chuckle on the other end, somewhat of a snort. Nothing like that high giggle he heard last night outside the bar. No mirth in this one.

“Like I said, I’m on scene right now, but my lunch is coming up and I’m done with most of my work already, so I’m not busy. Plenty of time to answer the phone, especially for you.” He leaned against the hot metal of his car, careful not to let his bare arm make contact as he slipped his free hand into his pocket.

“Well... how about you let me treat you to lunch?”

“You don’t have to do that—”

“I want food that isn’t room service or part of a convention buffet table, and I don’t know what’s good around here. You pick a place, and in return, I’ll cover the check.”

It was the dishes all over again. David had made it up in his mind that he was somehow deeply indebted to Dexter, and it didn’t seem like he’d budge from that conclusion, regardless of what Dexter did or said about it.

“Just name the place, and I’ll meet you there.”

The slight tug in his chest to keep talking with this doppelganger returned, stronger now when confronted with a guilt-free way to get what it wanted.

“Well?”

It’s just lunch, I guess. “Can you get to Victor’s 1959? It’s pretty close to the station, they’ve got good Cuban food.”

“I can figure it out.”

“Then I guess I’ll meet you there. I’ll wrap things up here.”

“Okay. Don’t leave me hanging.” David paused, maybe thinking better of what he said; “please.”

“I won’t.”

Dexter snapped the phone shut, stifling a large sigh. His usual and preferred solitary lunch would now be interrupted by the neurotic eyewitness he’d spent all night trying to clean up after, but at least he was getting free food out of it.

He’d make the best of it.

“Lieutenant?”

She looked up from the paperwork she was being shown, looking happier as soon as she caught sight of him poking his head back into the house.

“I’m done here for now, and it’s just about to be my lunch break. Think I can I head out?”

“Of course, sure. Have a good lunch, Dexter.” One of the very few perks of having a boss that kept trying to bat eyelashes at him was that she usually let him off easy with things.

“Got plans?” Unfortunately, his friend the detective was a little more inquisitive.

“What?”

“You rushed out to take a call and now you’re asking if you can leave. You’re usually the last to leave a scene, so I figured, maybe you have plans.”

He thought for a second. Well, Angel’s hard to lie to, so I can’t do it bald-faced. But I can’t tell him the full truth, because… well, obviously. But if I tell him I don’t have plans, he might try and invite himself along... and standing here staring at him silently with my mouth open isn’t helping. “I do. A—uh, I met a tourist last night that needed a hand, gave him my number and he wants to buy me lunch to pay me back. I don’t think it’s necessary, but hey, free food is free food, right?”

“Damn straight.” Angel gave him a small shake on the shoulder, smiling. “Try and have a good time, socio. You never know, maybe you’ll make a friend.”

Dexter returned his wink with a swift pat on the back, already leaning back out to the lawn. “See you guys later. Don’t have too much fun without me.”

---

A lattice-topped fence in bright cyan stood guard around the patio Dexter stepped onto, carefully missing the loose brick on the ramp he’d tripped on a few days ago. The whole building had a thing for that flashy aqua colour, making it stand out against the orange-toned brick of surrounding buildings. Dexter himself wasn’t quite sure if he even had a favourite colour, but there were certainly worse ones to draw people in. The flowers also helped, set out in planter boxes all along the perimeter, hanging on walls and topping fenceposts and blooming out to catch sunlight on their petals.

He pushed the door open, ears prepared for the twinkling of the bell above his head. The blast of air conditioning made him shiver momentarily, flash-freezing the sweat on his body. The place looked a little busy, but not bad enough to turn around and pick a new place.

His eyes dragged over all of the doodles and drawings from previous guests, encouraged to scribble on everything but the tables. The overwhelming coverage actually made the grafitti easier to deal with; it wasn’t a scratch here, a mark there—it was a name, a little character, a smudged stick figure on every surface, even on the ceiling, on the air duct, the inside of a lamp shade. A perfect wallpapering of the entire restaurant, with endless things to investigate inside the pattern.

He was partial to the little alien backing one of the booths, though, complete with U.F.O.

“Dexter—?”

“Tanya.” He snapped back to attention and began smiling before he even fully turned his head. This one was much easier to fake. “Looking lovely as always.”

She smiled at his slight chivalrous bow—she was always easy to win over. “Last time I checked, you come see me on Thursdays, not Tuesdays. What’s the double-dipping for?”

“Sick of me already? I thought we had a good thing going here.”

“Hey, if you wanna come in and pay me twice a week, that’s your decision.” She plucked a menu off the server’s station despite already knowing what he would order.

“I like the green.” After a pause, he pointed, shaking his other hand back and forth, fingers splayed and limp at the wrist.

“Oh—thank you. My daughter did them.” Tanya wiggled her fingers, slightly-messy lime green painstakingly painted on each nail.

“A little virtuoso! How’s second-grade treating her, can’t wait to get out for the summer?”

“Oh, she’s fine. Excited to be a ‘big kid’ soon.” She began piloting to his usual table in a back corner, a seat where the sun hit the table, but not his eyes. “She got in trouble for pulling a boy’s hair Friday, but she says he pulled her hair first. So.”

“Sounds like justice to me.” He sat, turning to face the rest of the restaurant, having an easy view of most everything—fellow customers, servers, and hopefully soon, David.

“That’s what I said.” She handed him the menu, standing by with her notepad. “So, what are we feeling like today?”

It was a weekly bit of theater. By the third visit, Tanya had cottoned-on to the fact that Dexter always got the same order, the same way, with the same drink, at roughly the same time each week, starting from the very beginning. I got it right the first time, why bother messing with it? Regardless, Tanya always handed him a menu, and he would always scan over the pages to mime thoughtfulness, and by the time he opened his mouth, she would already have his words written down.

“I think I’ll get the sandwich Cubano, with extra pickles and... house chips, for the side.” He pointed helpfully to the item on the menu, despite the fact she wasn’t looking.

“And what to drink?”

His eyes hovered over the beverages, agua minerale staring back at him the same as it always did, waiting for him to speak the words. “Lets uh… lets try the citrus tea today, actually.”

Tanya raised an eyebrow at him. “Living on the wild side today, huh? Is this how you are every Tuesday?”

“Only when I see you.” He smiled and handed the menu back, letting her slap his back with it playfully.

“I’ll have that out for you in a bit.”

Wait. Was I supposed to wait? I’ll be done by the time David gets here. “Uh—before you go, I have another surprise for you.”

“Should I be sitting down for this?”

Dexter chuffed—it was nice to come here an extra day. “I have someone coming to have lunch with me.”

“You do? Is… is it a coworker?”

“No.”

“Your sister’s got time off school?”

“Academy, and no. You won’t guess it right—his name’s David, he’s a tourist. Looks like it, should be easy to spot.”

“Well alright then.” She nodded. It was hard to read how she took that. “If I see a David, I’ll send him over. Want me to put a pause on your order then, wait ‘til he shows up?”

“Sure.”

“Good. I’ll bring your drink still, don’t need you wilting on me.”

“Thank you. And tell Noah I’ll have a card for her on Thursday.”

Growing up without being able to properly socialize left Dexter the difficult task of having to learn it in adulthood, a time in your life where people were much less likely to let you get away with social faux pas. The general public had sympathy for a child, fresh to the world, finding out when it wasn’t okay to stare, to yell, to say the wrong thing, but for an adult? Most people had already formed the opinion that he should know better.

The most helpful resource he had discovered to remedy this came from an oft-maligned place: service workers.

He wasn’t under any illusions; he was well aware these people were being nice to him for money—good service meant good tips. All the same, it was helpful; through trial and error, he’d worked his way through small talk time and time again, learned how to keep the precious Jenga tower of conversation from collapsing in on itself, leaving a substantial tip behind if he felt he had made a particularly bad move. It was still a work in progress, but he got better each day, through every meal and every trip to the grocery store. He was sure he’d have it mastered within the year.

It also introduced him to the concept of becoming a regular. Showing up at the same place at the same time, the staff would get used to you, and would remember your name when you came in. Order the same thing enough times, they’d remember that, too. Without even trying, he’d cemented another important block in his camouflage: the routine of a normal human being, with likes, dislikes, feelings, and opinions. He was just a regular guy, showing up to his favourite sandwich shop or bar, getting the food he liked after a long day. Perfectly boring, perfectly ordinary.

It’s nice to know they’ll always get it right for me, too. And the regularity, the order. Structure.

Tanya had been one of those many test-runs. Through her, he had learned that most people would tell you more the less you asked; it was human nature to over-tell. After establishing himself as a common face, giving ample tips and putting on his best ‘friendly stranger’ smile, he’d asked a simple question; got any fun plans this weekend?

He’d learned from others that asking a woman something like that the first time he met them wasn’t a good thing to do, but men were usually alright with it. After deliberation, he figured the issue was most likely one of safety; a strange man asking a woman where she would be on the weekend would come off as scary. However, he’d heard the question passed around the station in various forms every week regardless of who was asking who, so it must be acceptable small-talk at some point, in some configuration.

A simple adjustment—less was more. The real question was ‘what are your plans this weekend’, but people at work usually saw that as an invitation or upcoming request for company, as him checking their schedule preemptively. Moving to ‘do you have any fun plans this weekend’ left room for expansion; the other person, wanting to shut the line of questioning down, could easily say ‘no’ regardless of the truth as a polite way of avoiding answering. In addition, if they were open to that line of questioning, they could answer in the positive or negative, and then explain whatever fun or un-fun thing they had to do that weekend that prompted the answer.

Tanya had answered she was helping her daughter with a school project, with the ‘fun’ quotient being ‘kinda’, and that she would most likely end up doing the majority of the work herself.

He’d then used his previous experience to carefully pry, avoiding the loose bricks: she has a daughter, what was her name, how old was she, what was the project. He’d found that ‘what school do they go to’ was a little far unless offered up willingly, excepting when the child was in college—then it was a marker of pride.

Many more visits went by, and he learned she was a single mother raising a little girl, Noah. He’d even met the girl one day when she had the day off school and babysitting fell through. After months of his Cubanos every Thursday at one-thirty, she let the girl sit across from him as she coloured in her book, knowing he wouldn’t mind—and he didn’t, really. Kids were easy, and this one was quiet, anyway. Tanya had to keep the tables open for customers, and anywhere else, Noah would’ve been underfoot. She kept herself from kicking his legs under the table, and the most inconvenience she caused was asking if he could flag down a waiter to refill her water cup. He’d never looked after a child very long—being an older sibling meant he had to watch Deb on occasion, but Harry was careful to keep him from being in charge more than an hour—but he’d have to learn eventually. His own children seemed like a far away impossibility, but if he was going to be an uncle at any point, he needed to learn how to be a good one.

If Tanya asked, he was sure he’d watch Noah for an afternoon. Not that she ever would, but it was nice to know that about himself.

It was a good setup. Dexter wouldn’t toot his own horn too much, but the facts were that he was pleasant to be around, always polite when ordering, waiting patiently if the tables were unexpectedly full, all of it. He left good tips, didn’t leave a huge mess, and through hard work, was more than passing at conversation. Tanya gunned for him every time he came in, and she always got his order right, even if the kitchen would mess up sometimes—on such occasions, she would send it back without bringing it, and come to let him know it would be a bit longer. She got him to talk about his work, his family, his boat—even brought him a free serving of watermelon sorbet this February, when she learned it had been his birthday two days before.

All in all, it was a minor connection. They were friendly, and had mutual respect for one another. Dexter felt a glimmer of pride, having made such a bond with someone that wasn’t even a coworker, someone that wasn’t forced to work with him each day. Just like coworkers, if he stopped showing up, they would most likely stop talking, unlike true friends.

But as he glanced up at her retreating figure, having placed down an order at another table, he guessed he’d at least tell her if he was going to change lunch locations.

He sipped his tea, finding it tangy—not that he wanted or planned to change lunch locations. The food was good, the place was clean, the air conditioning worked, the people were nice. It was close to work, so easy to get to on his break, and they worked fast, too, so he never got caught out too long. Dexter rubbed his fingers idly up and down the cup, looking at the blue-background cherry-pattern plastic tablecloth set down. One of the less busy ones, to be sure, possibilities of dozens of different chaotically colourful floral patterns—like the man’s shirt this morning, actually.

Who the hell got all the way up to the ceiling just to write ‘Kunkel’?

“Dexter!”

Here came his favourite waitress, hurrying over without running.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“About...what?”

“About—” She turned, seeing whatever she had behind her had lagged back. She quickly stepped back, motioning someone forward, and presenting his mirror image—now shaved and combed, a suit jacket draped over his arm. “About all this.”

“What’s ‘all this’, exactly?” He waved a little at David, just getting a confused look in return.

“You didn’t tell me you were expecting your twin for lunch.” She moved aside, letting David slip into the booth across from Dexter.

“He’s not my twin.” “We’re not twins.”

Sudden intense eye contact across the table—okay, I can really hear it if we say the same damn thing.

Tanya again raised an eyebrow, suspicious, as she set down a menu for David, which he started examining promptly. “You’re not doing much to convince me, boys.”

Dexter chuckled, attempting to regain the situation: “He’s all the way from the West Coast, we just happen to look alike.”

“You sure you two weren’t separated at birth?”

David didn’t even look up from the laminated paper. “No, Ruth and Nathaniel Fisher had two children, and then one more as a surprise after they realized they were getting too old. If there were another me walking around, I’d know about it.”

“But you said you’re adopted, right?” She gestured with her pencil to Dexter, who suddenly felt David’s eyes on him. “Maybe they only kept one of you.”

“Well—yes, but—I’m pretty sure my parents would’ve told me if I had a brother out there somewhere.” Why does no one believe in coincidences anymore? “We’re just two men that happen to look similar, that’s all. Six billion people on the planet, it’s bound to happen sometimes.”

Tanya seemed unimpressed, putting her pencil to the notepad. “You know what you want to drink?”

The man across from him turned his head up to look at her before he took his eyes from the page, “the guava juice sounds nice. Is it?”

“I know I never get any complaints about it.”

“I’ll have that, then.”

Scribbling on paper, just like everything else. “I’ll get that out for you soon. Can I get you a refill, Dex?”

“I’m good.”

“Then I’ll be back in a few to grab your order.”

“Thanks.” He sent her away with a smile and a nod.

“So uh— did you find the place alright?”

“I did.” David was already rolling his sleeves back down, dressed in tie and collared shirt. “Distinct name, wasn’t hard to get directions.”

“Good.”

“Drive went well?”

“Drive went fine. A little traffic, but it’s worse at home, so I can’t complain.”

“That’s nice, at least.”

What good was all that practice on servers if he couldn’t do small-talk with anyone else?

“You know she was just joking, right?”

“Mm?” David’s words pulled his focus up from the tablecloth cherries.

“She doesn’t actually think we’re separated at birth.”

“...she doesn’t?” News to me.

“No. She was just teasing you—you come here often?” David scoffed. “Listen to me. ‘Come here often’, God—”

“I come here once a week.”

“Course you do.” Why’d you say it like that? “That explains things.”

“It does?”

“Yes.”

I don’t know if I like this path of conversation. “So what did you want to talk about?” He sipped his citrus tea again—upon further reflection, it was still tangy.

“About? I don’t know.” David grimaced a bit—his cheeks folded in the same place, making an obtuse angle on either side of his mouth. Subtle, of course—he was probably near Dexter’s age, and his had only just started to show—but undeniably similar. “Just… not too comfortable being alone right now.”

“Ah.” He had the same moles, too, one on each cheek, headed back towards the jaw. It really was inexplicable. “I guess you could do worse for company.”

“Have to agree.” David turned his head, looking at the wall, sunlight just barely catching his face, and Dexter’s eyes drew to his lashes, watching them as he blinked. “I’d rather be here than at the conference at this point.”

“What’s the conference for?” Is that what mine look like? That can’t be right.

“Funeral directors, I thought I said that. My dad was supposed to go, but he didn’t want to, and he bribed me by telling me to stay a week and ‘schmooze’—” He looked back at Dexter.

“Which was code for go on a vacation.” Mine can’t be like that. That’s too long, I would’ve noticed. “Got it.”

“Mhm.” David glanced back down at the menu, pouring over it, further helping Dexter’s study. “What’s good here?”

“I usually get the Cubano, but everything here is good.” So I’ve heard. “You can ask Tanya for recommendations if you want.”

“Your recommendation is to ask the waitress for a recommendation.” The man in formal dress lifted his brow, peering up at him with a bored look.

He looks like a camel or something. “She’s the one that works here.”

“Is there something on my face?”

“Uh… not that I can see. Can you feel something—”

“I can feel you staring at me.”

“Oh.” You aren’t supposed to stare, Dexter. “Sorry. Was looking at your… eyelashes.”

“My eyelashes.” David lifted his head, putting his shoulders back a bit, eyebrows picking up at the outer corners. Do I do that?

“They’re… long.”

A very, very slow blink.

“I just—don’t look at my own face that closely.”

His gaze hopped from eye to eye, watching for some kind of further response from Dexter before sighing. “I guess I don’t either.”

“It is weird.”

“Honestly I’ve just been trying not to think about it. Not exactly happy with the idea of someone else running around wearing my face.”

“It’s my face.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Thirty-one. It’s my face.” He looked back down at the menu before closing it in resignation. “You said this morning you have a sister.”

Ah, small-talk! Alright. He shifted in his seat, happy to be away from his blunder. “I do. Little sister, Debra. She’s working her way through the police academy right now.”

“Following in your father’s footsteps?”

Don’t like that.

David seemed to read some form of a question on his face. “The photo, on your side table by the desk, the cop. It was the same guy in the family picture, I made an assumption.”

So he’s… perceptive. Like me. He pulled a smile to the side, trying to show nonchalance. “She is, yeah. Wish he could be around to see her, she’s gonna be great. And I’m not just saying that as a big brother.”

“Sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” He’s a funeral director, of course he focuses on that. I don’t feel like wearing ‘bereaved’ right now, though. “Ah… you said your parents had two other children?”

Nodding, a deep breath. Maybe I’m the normal one here, the one with the close sibling relationships. “My older brother, Nate, he’s up… God knows where on the coast, Seattle most likely, and my little sister, Claire, she’s in highschool.”

“Your little sister is heavy on the ‘little’.”

A small giggle—he fought to ignore the thoughts of last night. It would be good joy, this time, not joy used as a weapon. “She is.”

“So we both have little sisters. The similarities just keep piling up, David, I’m starting to think we’re clones.”

A stupid joke, and the man was smiling. As grotesque as it seemed, he had to admit, it was better to see that than yesterday’s terror. “Uh-uh, I have an older brother. Middle child. You’re an oldest.”

“I guess you’re right. It sounds like both of your parents are still around, too.”

“Mhm. I’m guess—are any of yours?”

“No.” My biological parents..? “At least not that I know of, I only ever knew my adoptive family.”

“Oh.”

“’s a little sad.”

“Is it?”

“I guess so. Could’ve had four parents—but maybe it’s better like that, y’know? If they couldn’t keep you, you probably weren’t going to grow up happy.”

Well, in the house I did grow up in, I turned out to capture, kill, and cut up people, so… who’s to say. “Probably.”

David looked out at the restaurant, sighing slightly. He definitely seemed more relaxed now—he was still unsettled, but he wasn’t crawling up the walls anymore. He was combed, and shaved, and had put on clean, pressed clothes. It was good to see.

“We both work with death, too.”

David turned back, raising his eyebrows in a silent ‘could you repeat that? I wasn’t listening.’

“We both work with death. I… analyze blood at crime scenes, you—well I don’t know what all a funeral director does, but you must work with dead people.”

“I embalm them too, yes, if that’s what you’re asking.” I didn’t ask anything. “I help them plan the service for their loved ones, as well as help make them look their best for the day-of.”

“That explains—” Maybe don’t talk about that out loud. But maybe he wants to talk about it? “—your reaction to my work.”

The ‘y’ sound barely formed on his lips before David caught on, looking around and spotting Tanya returning. “I guess it would.”

Bright green fingernails enclosing around a cup, setting it down. “One guava juice—you figure out what you want to order, David?”

“Ah—” He side-eyed Dexter, smiling up at her in a ‘what can you do’ manner. “He’s no help, what would you recommend I get?”

Tanya smiled knowingly—ages of slowly figuring out how to talk to her, and this guy gets it right away? “Well, depends; how hungry are you?”

“I’ll say… decently.”

“Well—” She flipped his menu back open, pointing to a few options as she spoke, “for something lighter, I’d recommend the barbecue pork sandwich, that’s what I always order, but, if you’d like something more substantial, I’d get the lechon asado, that comes with rice, beans, and yucca frita. And if you think that’s too much food, don’t worry, we have boxes—or you could just hand it off to the garbage disposal over there.”

David turned the little smile his way momentarily—a genuine one—before looking back at her. “I’ll get that, then.”

“Wonderful.” Tanya plucked the menu back up. “I’ll put that and your Cubano in, and we’ll have that all out for you.”

“Thanks.” Dexter tried the expression on himself, looking at David for some inspiration.

“How long have you been coming here?”

“Ah… I think I came in for the first time in… May of last year?”

“So you’re coming up on a year anniversary.” A chuckle—again, genuine. That one was easy to do, surely. “Makes sense.”

“It does?”

“Yes.”

The lunch was uneventful, at least from Dexter’s point of view. Talking about the weather, the traffic, the weather again—it was astonishing how much of casual conversation would come from the weather alone. Talking about the current weather in isolation, talking about how hot it was supposed to be, talking about humidity. Comparing it to yesterday, comparing it to last week, comparing it to the same time last year. Favourite weather, worst weather, the average weather they’d like to live in—there was a lot of mileage one could get out of just ‘how about that weather?’

The meal came. Dexter ate in his usual efficient way, softening his bites slightly while watching David before deciding that it didn’t matter, and that it was actually good that they had yet another thing different between them. David enjoyed his juice, and ate most of his plate, asking Dexter if he wanted to ‘polish off’ the yucca frita’, which he only realized was supposed to be a joke a few minutes later when they were already almost gone. At least David didn’t seem to mind—apparently, eating off a barely-not-stranger’s plate after being invited insincerely was still less strange than disposing of a body. Despite the circumstances, it did have it’s silver lining; any social faux pas would be dwarfed by such a thing, he’d already done the most unacceptable human behaviour, and David still stuck around.

David tucked his card back into his wallet, bill already paid. “So blood spatter analysis…?”

Dexter crunched one of the three remaining fries loudly, waiting for more words.

“I’ve never heard of that.”

He swallowed. “It usually gets rolled in with the rest of analysis, that’s why.”

“So what do you… do, exactly?”

It was hard to deny the sigh bubbling up—he’d had this conversation a million times, and a million times, he said the same list of things, and got the same three looks: hidden discomfort, boredom, or disgust. “I look at blood at crime scenes to piece together what happened. Like—like this morning, I said I was looking at an axe murder?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, just the blood—and the wounds that produced it—can tell me… where the altercation started, where it ended, what the victim did as they died, where the suspect went afterwards, what the murder weapon was, sometimes even how tall the suspect is—”

“All that from blood?”

“All that from blood.” Dexter plucked up the second-to-last fry. A little part of him wanted to show off.He is already done eating... “This morning, I figured out it was most likely an axe just from looking at the wounds and seeing the spatter patterns on the ceiling.”

“The ceiling?” David leaned forward on his hand a little, neck stretched. The subtle marks on his neck from the night before had darkened slightly, but thankfully mostly hid behind his collar.

“I noticed that there were castoff patterns on the ceiling—castoff patterns are when you have an object, usually a weapon, that then flings specks of blood as it’s moved or swung. The drops had tails pointing away from the attacker, very subtly, meaning it was most likely from an object swung at the victim, in a large arc. Most stabbings are straight in-and-out, not swung over the head, and something like a machete would have tails in both directions—” He grabbed his unused knife, motioning back and forth, as if he were hacking into someone’s shoulder. “An axe explained the appearance of the wounds, and fit the blood. You swing it wide over your head for maximum damage, and then dislodge it, but don’t lift it up so high like you would a lighter instrument.”

“And you got all this from a few spots on the ceiling.”

“And the wounds.”

“…that’s…” David looked bewildered a moment before taking the final fried yucca root from the plate. “That’s...impressive.”

Dexter raised his eyebrows ever so slightly, watching him chew casually, apparently unbothered. The brutal murder of a man with an axe wasn’t something that would put David off his appetite, by the looks of things. Hm.

“So, when does your lunch break end?”

He looked at the empty plates and glanced down at his watch, spreading his fingers wide apart. “Few minutes from now.”

“Mm.” David wiped his mouth with his napkin for a final time, leaning back and checking his work with the back of his thumb. “Sorry I... took up the whole thing.”

“Ah, don’t be.” He waved a hand. “I expected you to.”

Quiet. Dexter was accustomed to quiet, to non-talking, but that didn’t mean he was totally ignorant when it came to how most people thought about it—sometimes they were comfortable with it, sometimes it was unbearable. Something gave him the impression that David was one of those ‘silence is unbearable’ types.

“I’m sure you’ve got things to do—”

“Sure, I’ve got a speaking… thing… later.” He rubbed his face with his hands, looking less tired yet endlessly exhausted. Maybe that was just how he always looked. “But… I am here ‘til Sunday. So.”

“That’s good. Gives you plenty of time to see the city, if you still want to.”

That quiet again. Dexter looked back up from his empty glass to catch David squinting at him.

“What?”

“You don’t take hints very well, do you?” His accomplice leaned across the table on one hand again, neck showing.

What ‘hint’? “Sorry, I’m—I’m a little off my game still. Last night was…”

The smile on his mirror’s face withered, and turned to a frown. “Right, right. Sorry, I shouldn’t—I’m saying I’d like to… I don’t know. Get lunch again or something.”

Dexter was plenty good at taking hints. He might not always catch them the first time around—people never just said what they meant—but when he did, he got them fast.

The lunch hadn’t been interesting enough to warrant a follow-up, so David must be after something else: companionship. Nothing serious, most likely, just wanting to befriend the only other person that had gone through this ‘terrible experience’ with him. Traumatic bonds were some of the strongest he’d seen around, partners on the force undergoing life or death situations making their relationships stronger than most marriages, to a point.

“I don’t know if its the best idea that we keep meeting up like this.”

It was the truth—the more they were connected with one another, the worse it might be if something was found out.

Beyond that, it was some gut feeling, some insistent prodding from his amygdala that told him stay away—there was nothing to link him or David Fisher to Oliver Beaumont, and even if there was, there was nothing that meant they killed him, yet he couldn’t quash the urge to put distance between them.

“That… that’s probably for the better.” How was it possible for those features to so perfectly twist into subtle gloom? Dexter had gotten decent at pinching his face in sorrow, the fine line between comical frowning and believable sadness, but what always got him was the layers, the attempt to portray himself as being upset, but trying to hide it. Thankfully, people were usually quick to project the emotions of a situation onto him regardless, and took his blank, neutral outward display as one that hid internal turmoil, but it was still annoying not to have it in his emotional toolbelt, to have to rely on others making assumptions instead of directing the narrative himself.

“But—” I cleaned up everything. We already agreed on a cover story. I need to practice, and besides, having a friend outside of work is better camouflage than ‘that loner that lives by himself and never goes out for drinks with us’.

Hope flickered across the bastardized reflection across from him, clearly trying to be restrained. Dexter watched the slight lift of the brow, the clench of his jaw, the sudden lidded quality of his eyes in an attempt to appear uneager despite the ever-so-small tug at the corner of his lips. Nearly invisible excitement.

“Maybe it’s not the worst idea, either.” Dexter had never felt a very strong drive to have friends, as it were. He liked being alone; he thrived in his ‘fishbowl’ of a lab, as Deb put it, a place he could shut himself away from the world as he worked. Even so, he couldn’t deny the bit of pleasure that came from un-obstrusive company and the opportunity for close-up people watching. In addition, a shared secret made the interaction all the more interesting to him; David didn’t know the whole truth, but it still provided insight into how people would respond to Dexter Morgan, Lab Geek being a monster. It was strange; if David had seen his criminal underbelly—or at least part of it—and still wanted to talk to him, what could he possibly do to off-put him now?

Barring even that, there was something oddly... sweet in talking to David, or maybe tangy, owing to how they met. Due to the nature of his work, no one impacted by those he hunted would ever know that their boogeyman was gone—that justice had been done—because of him. He would never be a hero to anyone—which, in honesty, he wasn’t—but here he was, across from someone he had saved, and someone that knew that fact. A debt incurred, a debt that would keep their shared night a secret, a debt that would make him forgive other transgressions.

Not that Dexter was in the business of taking advantage of such a debt, but still. “I don’t know your schedule.”

“Well—” His body-double sat up straighter, folding his hands on the table. ‘Funeral salesman’ seems a little more believable now. “Ah—we can… we can work around your schedule, you’re the one with a nine-to-five, here.”

“It’s not nine-to-five—”

“I know.” He’s trying to make it as easy as possible for me, so I don’t blow him off—or he doesn’t want me to know when and where he is. “You get my meaning.”

“I do.” Didn’t he say he already went to all the touristy-things? “I don’t know what you’d… feel up for doing besides… lunch, dinner.”

“I’m guessing you don’t take a lot of people out.” He put up his hands before Dexter had a chance to reply. “No judgment. Just easy to notice.”

I guess I’m not as good as I thought I was at this. At least he’s honest with me, tells me when I’m messing up. Everyone but Deb just kind of… smiles and nods. “Can’t be that easy.”

“It is.”

Might be fun, to see if I can fool him more.

“Don’t worry. Most people find it charming, I’m sure.”

Most people… like my co-workers. They like me. And I don’t have to talk about the weather anymore if it’s something I know.

“I’d be more than fine with just food—”

“I could show you around work.”

“...’scuse me?”

“I could bring you to the station.” His leaned in a bit, the idea starting to excite him. “You seemed interested in hearing about my work, you could come in and see it yourself.”

David swallowed, brow furrowing. He’s nervous. “...that’s allowed?”

“I’m allowed to have visitors, yeah.” He already put it together, might as well confirm it for him. “I don’t really use that perk often, but I do have it.”

That bewildered look again—confused, but not altogether negative.

“We can find something else—”

“No, work—is fine.” He smiled, grabbing his suit jacket that probably wouldn’t be worn until the sun went back down. “Might be nice to see some of the people that know you, y’know. See you in context.”

“You’ve already been in my apartment, that’s more context than anyone at work has gotten.” He’s willing to let me take him into the lion’s den. How far can I take this? Dexter slid out of the booth, slipping a ten and a one under his empty glass.

“I already gave her a tip on the check.”

Eh, but it’s a little wet now… “Two of her favourite customer walks in, she should get two tips.”

A tiny giggle yet again—does he ever actually laugh, or do I just get to enjoy the song of my new best friend, the hyena? “Okay. So, what do I need to do? Dress code, code of conduct…?”

The twin set made their way to the door. “Dress how you like. You have to go through a metal detector, though. I’ll let ‘em know I’m expecting you day-of so they don’t hassle you.”

“And what day should that be?” David stepped through the door as Dexter held it for him. “What time?”

“Ah…” Important question, hard to answer. “Well, murders don’t exactly happen on a schedule, so I can get pulled away any time I’m at work, more or less. But—tomorrow, I’m usually just waiting around from three ‘til five waiting on stuff to finish up. That could work.”

“Soft three-o’clock tomorrow.”

“Do you need the address?”

“Ah—or the name. Unless there’s only one police station around here.”

“Hah.” The sound escaped without his say-so, high and breathy. With how violent the city was, anything less than three in the area would put even the higherups on unpaid overtime. “Miami Metro Police Department.”

“Gotcha.” David looked around, probably searching for his car on the street.

Dexter unlocked his. “Are you sure you’ll be okay around a bunch of detectives? After… last night?”

“So long as you promise not to ditch me.” Some orange-tinted sunglasses came out of his suit jacket pocket to combat the bright midday sun. “I’m not a stranger to keeping secrets under pressure.”

“Good.” A little smile, for reassurance. “If anyone asks how we met, let me do the talking. You had too much to drink, I saw you heading home, and let you sleep it off at my place.”

“Lovely way to break the ice with the local police, telling everyone I’m a sloppy drunk.”

“Hey,” Dexter bumped his shoulder against David’s with a wink, lowering his voice to near a whisper. “Better than a killer.”

“Thanks. Makes me feel so much better.” Sarcasm. That one was easy. Better than anger—he’s loosening up. “Text me tomorrow if we’re still on, please. I don’t wanna show up to an empty lab.”

“You got it, partner.” He gave a small salute as his shadow fled the sun, headed back to whatever rental car he happened to drive for the week.

He re-entered his own vehicle, relaxing a bit as he gripped the warmed steering wheel. For the first time in his career, he’d have an outsider there at work, for him.

The thought of having David Fisher around cops was not one that set his mind at ease, exactly, but the thought of having David Fisher someplace he could keep a direct eye on him was. Besides, endearing himself to the man even more than he had would be more reason not to squeal; he’d have to look at the nice, comfortable life Dexter had built, complete with at-work-friends who trusted him, and decide to try and tear it down anyway. One guilt would beat out another.

He turned the ignition, putting his seatbelt on as a smile curled up on his lips.

It’ll be fun to show off my other skills to him, too. Not just the ripping and tearing kind.

Notes:

me when the person im trying to get rid of ends up having lunch with me and i have so much fun that i ask them to come to work with me. bozo.
all hail serpercival for once again looking at this 9k behemoth and proofing it. blessings

also if you want a list of references ive made thus far. heres a googledoc

Chapter 4: And The People Are Friendly, Too

Summary:

David has a bit of a rough morning, deciding it's best to see Dexter as soon as he can.

Notes:

happy thanksgiving gang. yeehaw

The water came out with a bright buzzing sound, a warm chiffon blanket slowly traveling down the skin of his back in a careful massage, the ocean-scented suds long since gone from his hair, leaving the smell of the sea to bounce around the basin of the shower and embed itself with the neutral, duty-only travel-sized body wash. Steam filled the bathroom, hot water hitting cold porcelain and fogging the mirror on the wall. Pristine tiles on the floor, the wall—all glittered with artificial dew, stone weeping from the thick moisture suffocating the space.

He leaned back slightly, letting the stream cup his scalp, trace down his shoulders, gently kiss the top of his head. Every part of him sat on the border of uncomfortable, a single degree of difference between bearable and scalding. A deep breath resulted in nothing but a cough, making him inhale only partially, humidity sous-viding his lungs in a room-wide rice-cooker.

Knees tucked close but not touching his chest. Elbows perched on them, arms stretched out loosely in front of him, condensation dripping off his fingertips as it tried to hold his hand. Mist forming pretty drops on his eyelashes, blinking them off with no particular urgency—hard to feel any sort of haste when even his bones had been lithified by the suffocating haze crowding out the air.

He managed a slow, steady, full breath, letting his lungs get used to the too-thick intake gradually, and let it out, watching the cloud around him swirl and dance in an effort to get away from his exhalation.

With a hand on the wall, he pulled his feet back under him, rising up with measured effort and letting his body adjust to the even hotter air up high, unable to stop himself from flinching out of the now-too-hot water. In a quick movement, he turned the dial the opposite direction, holding himself in the soft, sleepy fog for several seconds before stepping back under the water.

Not pain, but tingling—hot skin made ice, chest expanding for a full, desperate breath without say-so. He stood in the stream a short while, letting the feeling of flash-freeze edge over every over-anxious muscle, holding that big breath calmly in his slow-beating ribcage, letting the water wash down his face, rubbing it into his hair, dragging his hands down the back of his bruised neck carefully, straightening his back and straining to stiffness—

Then he blew it out. Delicately, he deflated, flicking the water off his fingertips and clawing the moisture from the crease between his eyelids, keeping it from dripping into his now-opening eyes. His shoulders slumped, he turned off the water.

Step out onto the bath mat. Grab a towel. Dry his body. Tie off his waist. Grab the second towel—a hand towel—and rub it over his head like he’s wrestling a de-muddied dog. Wipe the mirror clean.

Shaving cream was first, then the razor. Wash the rest off. Check the time; it was still only six. Brushing his teeth, back and forth with a quickness on all four quarters. Flossing, picking between each tooth, tight cord wound three times around each index finger. Mouthwash, twenty seconds, spit. A last brush on his tongue. Swallow.

Nosehair trimmer?

No. I look fine.

He left the bathroom, ears prickling at the sound of carpet trying to hold on to his still-wet feet. Today’s outfit already lay out on the bed: underwear, socks, undershirt, dress shirt, black slacks, belt. Grey tie.

Grey… I don’t think I’m feeling grey.

The rest of the ties hung on a hanger in the closet, carefully draped over the bar and easy to bring to the bed, easy to pluck one up and hold it by the rest of the outfit in the mirror. Each one was almost the exact same as the next, all mostly neutral and having either a subtle pattern or none whatsoever, and none of them really spoke to him.

He could go with the blueish one; police stations usually had a lot of blue, so he’d fit right in. Besides, some of his shirts had that overly-whitened blue tint to the cotton after Mom had tried to do him the favour of washing them. There was also the black one, an old standby with a slightly shimmering diamond pattern, but that felt a little too… formal. Too much like work, not enough like visiting a new friend, and the last thing he wanted to do was draw undue attention. Showing up looking like a cop himself was a one-way ticket to exactly that.

It still sent that chill up his spine; of course, what better part of Miami to explore after committing a murder than a police station, likely crawling with dozens of people that would love nothing more than to catch him out on some inconsistency in his story, some piece of evidence he left behind, and arrest him on the spot? What better way to soothe his ailing, guilty mind than surround himself with Miami’s finest, walk right into the den of lions waiting to tear into his shameful body and let everyone know exactly what kind of rotten he was?

Then again… that was where Dexter would be, regardless of what he’d rather be doing. All day, every day, surrounded by people trained to sniff out people like them, and he was… fine. At the very least he did a good job of faking being fine.

He had to admit, it was the tiniest bit unnerving. That night, amidst the blood and the bile and the evil, the choking grasp of terror, the pitch-black rancor of death hovering over breathing stagnancy over every action, making leaden limbs and hyperventilation… he’d been calm. There was easily observable panic at first, right after David had stopped fucking weeping on the poor man, but as soon as David agreed to the plan, he’d… settled. Something ticked over in his mind, and it was all business; each new decision glided in tandem with the rest, almost practiced with how easily it seemed to come to him.

Maybe seeing him at work would help elucidate things, how he could perfectly compartmentalize his way out of the blood gushing out of that man’s neck and onto his stomach, of ripping open arteries and airways with the end of a wineglass and scratching his way out from under him, of doing God knew what to the body after scrubbing endlessly at the stain of life all over the carpet.

How he could stomach all that, and then walk David to bed, make him breakfast, go to work and take David to lunch. How he could come out looking ordinary, normal, a little aloof but otherwise entirely casual. Put together and polished, pristine, practically perfect, behaving like his life had finely ironed corners with every ‘t’ and ‘I’ crossed or dotted, nothing at all like his life had just been interrupted by—

“Maybe I had you wrong.” His breath caught in his throat, refusing to let him react to the figure that had to be standing behind him on the left, knowing the drowned breath, knowing the rot, the pool below him growing and leeching into the hotel’s clean beige carpet. “Takes major balls, killing someone and then visiting your new best pal, the cop, at work, in the police station.”

He turned to his right, facing the bed again and grabbing up the sage green tie from the hanger. The hulking figure tried to learn into his field of view, but he turned again, back to the mirror.

“Gotta look best for your date, right? Wouldn’t wanna disappoint him.”

“It’s not a date. And I’ve got what, nine hours before I see him anyway, I’m dressing for the day.”

“Do the green, it goes with your eyes.”

“I don’t need fashion advice from a corpse. Call yourself a photographer and you don’t know how to dress yourself.” A beat passed, David considering the colour. It did go nicely with his eyes—I guess that means it would go with Dexter’s, too, God that is weird—and the pattern was simple, but pretty, made up of only texture and not a new colour. He popped his collar, snaking the tie around his neck and beginning to fasten it.

“Relax, it’ll go great. You’ll charm him just fine—just bat those long eyelashes he loves starin’ at.”

“I’m more than capable of having a platonic friend of the same sex. I’ve done it my whole life, nothing has changed—you have not changed anything.” Besides, he has my face. That’d be a whole new fucked up kind of narcissism—

“Is it really narcissism if he’s the better version of you? Guess that would make it worse, right? Cause’ he’s got a stable life, respectable job, he’s not some backwards-ass fairy looking for a quick fuck at a bar just ‘cause he thinks Mommy and Daddy aren’t watching—”

“Is this my life now? You’re going to keep showing up to heckle me whenever I get a second of downtime, that’s my penance?” The high indignancy in his voice did a piss-poor job covering the wilt of fear begging him to run and hide, to freeze, to agree and roll over in an attempt to have his life spared.

“What can I say, I can’t get enough of you, Dave.” Wet and muted steps approached, stopping by his side and staying in the periphery of his vision, neck pouring impossibly quickly. “We belong together, you ‘n me. You’re pretty, and damn dangerous.”

“So are you. You’ve done a lot more harm than I have,” David pulled the tie a little tighter, brushing it to lie flat and formal. “There’s only one person out there that can judge me for that night, and it sure as fuck isn’t you.”

“Oh, we both already know you’re going to Hell, David—” There was no reflection for the hand that suddenly grabbed him with no time allotted for a final panicked gasp, squeezing his throat shoving him back, back, making him stumble and fall with his legs kicking in vain—“And I’ll see you when you get here.”

Weight too heavy on his chest, stomach, ribs unable to spread, unable to expand, hands fluttering to the grip on his neck, sweaty, clammy, white-knuckled, useless—“Unless you meant…?”

Tense muscled coiled up around his airway, ten snakes of muscle, crowding out the air, out the life—brown-dyed teeth, raucous laughter filling the room, drowning out his heartbeat thumping hard, desperate and praying, prey’s heart, skin purpled and blanching, cold and wet death spilling over the fresh white shirt, stained black, cold—“You really are trying to ride his dick, aren’t you?

“God, you’re pathetic.” Stale musk of aging blood, clotted, pouring in sticky lumps out of the hole, gurgling of non-breath, of laughter, mocking, spraying, misting his face with salt, back of his throat burning with the taste of blood, savoury, squeezed—“What makes you think you’d ever have a chance with someone like him? He’s way too good for you.”

Forehead sweat, scentless, back-of-mouth noises and stressed salivary glands, trying to remove a blockage from the inside out, pale face taken up and obscured by vision spots, vision becoming only spots of clarity, spilled wine wafting—

“Housekeeping.”

Sweaty puddle, sitting up against the bed, holding his throat, holding the bruises, holding the hole-free neck, breathing hard, breathing incomplete, a thistle in his throat budding, blooming, watered, nurtured by slaughtered man’s blood, a killer’s blood, a killed killer’s blood, cold and clotted in black lumps—

“Anyone in there?

“Come back later.” The words were paint thinner, opening his throat, hand pulling weakly at the pretty green tie to free trapped breath. “Please.”

His lungs struggled to fill with air, blowing out half-breaths and sucking in full ones, chest impossibly tight and wet with only slight sweat, not sticky, black, overdue rot.

No more ghost through the blurry, black-dotted curtain over his vision. No more pale face staring at him, eyes glassy and vacant and still so full of hatred, a face hopefully taken away someplace and eaten by crocodiles to make up for the waste of life it had hosted.

No, it’s called ‘Alligator Alley’. It would be alligators.

David grabbed the bed, pulling himself up to sit on it, hand on his heart and feeling the frantic, face-paced thump-thump of a wild animal caught in a game trap. The ghost was gone and the fear remained, settled heavy at the back of his throat like a chilled, glass marble. Wiping his face on his sleeve, it was hard to tell if it was tears or sweat slicking his cheeks. They were too hot, regardless, skin boiling. Ice-cold fingers against his forehead, trying to balance out both extremes and trying to manage a full breath. The walls would stop spinning, the air in the room would go back to being air instead of gasoline fumes, his eyes would be able to close and shut out the nauseating after-images of the worst mistake he’d managed to make in thirty-one years of life.

He stood.

Shaky hands found the small glass bottle on the bedside table, fumbling with the cap hopelessly for a moment before he remembered it was a pull-off, not a twist-off. A few wood-tinged sprays to cover up the stench of fear.

“I need to be around people.”

It was pointless to say it if no one was around, but hearing it ring in his ears instead of just his mind made it real, made it true. Made it worth considering.

He needed to talk to someone. Something like this, killing someone when you didn’t want to, it was different than just seeing a dead body on a slab—it was witnessing and participating in the death of another human being. Normal people would need counseling, therapy, maybe even medication. They needed to get it off their chest before it suffocated them, needed to offload the burden and be told how to handle such a weight without breaking their back.

Normal people also didn’t get themselves into that situation to begin with.

If he tried to be normal, tried to get help, he’d ruin not just his life, but also drag down a perfectly normal, nice man alongside him—he was probably wracked with it too, the anxiety. He was just better at hiding it.

I don’t think I can even go to confessional with this. It’s stuck on me.

The room had settled back to it’s normal quiet, with only the slight woosh of the air vent keeping him company. Outside was a bright, sunny, probably very sticky Miami day, waiting to rake its judgemental gaze over him until he was burned red with shame, full of people to rub shoulders with, strangers he’d never meet again, strangers that might tonight decide to finish the job for the man now hopefully resting in the stomach of alleyway alligators—

He checked his watch, fingers twitching with the nerves.

Five after seven.

I have to get out of this room.

--

Leaning in for a kiss, only to bite, brown-dyed teeth pulling lips from a man fastened by epoxy to an old oak wheelchair, tearing flesh like a lion into the stringy sinew of a gazelle, only to spit them out without care. Gagging his already torn mouth, pouring a thermos of gasoline across his body and setting him alight, kicking him out the back of the van and letting the screaming, agonized fireball roll down the street, melting arms pulling free from the chair, security guard scrambling for a fire extinguisher to put out the soon-to-be-dead reporter—

Jesus Christ.

David looked up, the bakery-slash-coffee-shop on Biscayne still perfectly regular, all the customers up and about and not currently flaming. The “modern” clock painted directly onto the wall read a quarter ‘til noon, and the book was half finished. He turned down the corner of the page and closed it, stifling a sigh through his cold coffee.

Last time I skip reading the back of the book.

If he were being fair, he was enjoying it more than he would’ve a book with actual dragons, but still—murdered families, defiled corpses, a man burning to death, some sick bastard biting people?

Bit much for a Wednesday morning.

Then again, maybe it’s prep work, if I’m gonna be in a crime lab. Probably crime pictures and… stuff. Dead bodies and all that mess.

It didn’t bother him that much, really. Lawyer would’ve been his chosen profession, but he couldn’t deny his ‘it’-factor—the coveted ability to keep an iron stomach and steady nerves when faced with the mulched remains of what was once a human person. If you had it, a dozen doors opened for you—most desired, a doctor, but for that, you also had to care about people, or else you’d just be one of the doctors people complained to their friends about for their terrible bedside manner and dismissal of patient concerns.

It also, of course, applied to the work of an embalmer. Hijacking the body’s pipes to pump all manner of fluids and keep-fresh chemicals, packing unmentionable orifices with cotton to prevent leakage, carefully closing up the holes of the face and putting in eyecaps to make sure grandma looked just how they remembered her—ignoring the laborious process of pressing on the abdomen, squeezing out every last bit of ooze and postmortem purge before sewing the whole thing up, or the delicate washing, endless washing, endless cleaning to make the most neat-looking dead flesh imaginable. Aspirating the abdomen, removing all liquids still left in the cavity—none of that was even mentioning people split apart, mashed to pieces, cut to ribbons, skin sanded off and asphalt now permanently blackening skin. Burn victims… usually closed-casket, but he still had to see the aftermath, even if he wasn’t supposed to fix it.

...Maybe Dexter and I are more alike than I thought.

He tapped the lid of his cup in a rhythm. Sure, it was barely noon, but traffic would take an hour, and one was only a little bit early compared to three. Besides, he would’ve shown up early anyway, and two-thirty is practically just two o’clock to begin with.

But to show up early, I’ve gotta have something good.

Eyes wandered to the menu, away from the cover of the book he’d just bought and already bunny-eared to hell and back, and scanned the selection.

--

Catering was never his strong suit.

He stalled in the parking lot, taking survey of the goodies. One large, white, paper bag held all manner of bagels—cinnamon, everything, plain, chocolate chip, sesame seed, poppy-seed—all courtesy of the friendly cashier that kept recommending what they found yummy, which was most of them. Bagels seemed like the right midpoint between ‘bringing donuts to cops’ and not bringing anything at all; besides, it was after one, now. It was lunch time, bagels were a good, light lunch. Cream cheese was included, insulated from the Miami heat by endless bread.

A second, smaller bag held two specialty items; chocolate covered croissants. Dexter had been nice enough to save his life, and then protect it the rest of the way by cleaning up the disaster afterwards, and still put up with him wanting to stick around afterwards going so far as to invite him right into his work, into his life—the least David could do was bring him a little treat for them to share.

Who invites a new friend to their work, though, really? I’d rather die than show someone the creepy shit I do for a living.

He was a strange man—maybe not the strangest David had ever met, but definitely up there. He seemed to stare a lot, but that might just be the same-face-thing, really, and it wasn’t that bad, anyway. Never bad staring, just… like he forgot he was looking at you while his mind wandered. He seemed careful around people, maybe a little less so around David, but hid it all under an air of effortlessness.

It was easy to read; David wasn’t the only man with a secret.

Doesn’t matter. Maybe its just the Oliver thing, anyway, maybe he’s not normally like this. And what do I care, anyway, it’s none of my business what he is or isn’t hiding.

The building sat outside his windshield.

His chest beat a quick pitter-patter, watching the police stream in and out of the building at a sluggish pace, the blued-white blood cells flowing through the heart of Miami—ones that didn’t seem to be doing that good of a job, especially considering Monday night, but that’s always how it seemed to go in hot places with a lot of vacationers.

“Better make their job easy for ‘em and just roll over. Save everyone the time and man-hours—”

The door flung open with just a bit too much force, David’s leg shooting out and stamping the pavement with a harsh slap. His fist crinkled the bags audibly as he hurried out of his seat, locking the car behind him and refusing to look back. We’re not doing that again.

Dexter’s in here, and if I wanna see Dexter again, I’ve gotta be willing to put myself out there.

Being in a place he didn’t belong wasn’t anything new to David—the key was to act like you, too, were just another busy drone, working right alongside the rest of the hive, and people would never look twice. Exude confidence, even if you didn’t have it, and most people couldn’t tell the difference between you and people with real places to be.

He carried that energy right up to the pair of people at the entrance desk waiting at their counter.

“Can—” The woman looked up from her paperwork before she could get anything else out, burning a hole in his head with the focus of her gaze. She could’ve been doing long division for all the concentration she had all of a sudden. “Ah—can we help you with something?”

The man to her left, now elbowed, also looked up.

I… guess Dexter knows these two pretty well—or at least they know him. I hope for good reasons.

David cleared his throat, “yes, uh—I’m here to visit someone, I don’t… know the protocol.”

“That explains why I’ve never seen you around, thought maybe you were a delivery boy.” The man motioned to the bags with a little smile.

“Oh!” A little chuff. Maybe he wants a bribe? Do cops take bribes—are these cops? Do these two count as cops? “Well, I’ve found you make a better impression if you come bearing gifts. Bagels. In this instance.”

The man moved, looking at something on the computer. “Who are you here for, and who’re you?”

“David Fisher. I—my name is David Fisher. I’m here to see Dexter Morgan, I’m here for Dexter.”

Typing, wordless typing.

“Said the wrong order, there.”

“He did mention his ‘new buddy David’ would be stopping by later when he came in this morning, but he neglected to mention when. Or the gifts.”

“Or the face thing, I’m guessing.” David offered both a smile and the bag, tilting it carefully. The man—nametag ‘Michael’—stood out of his seat, accepting the offer willingly. Chocolate chip.

“You two long-lost brothers or something?” The woman, ‘Laurie’ in pretty brass lettering, also accepted the bakery bribery as David let out a small laugh.

“No, but you’re not the first to ask. It’s weird, isn’t it?” The best way to get out ahead of this kind of thing was to bring it up yourself—isn’t my hair crazy today, I went to bed at 8pm and still woke up with these eyebags, this mustard stain is going to be a bitch to get out. It went from something everyone awkwardly noticed and avoided talking about to something people could laugh about and chat over. “He’s even got my voice.”

Michael chuckled as Laurie mouthed around her poppy-seed lunch, “at least you guys dress different. Could be like those little twins that the parents dress up the same, my cousin’s friend just had two pudgy little sailors she dressed up in the full little regalia. All fun and games ‘til someone switches ‘em on accident.”

A broad smile. I wonder if its our face that makes people say this kind of thing unprompted. “Ah, he’s a bit more casual yeah.”

The woman wiped her mouth on her wrist. “And he brings donuts, you bring bagels.”

Fuck. “Hah! Guess so… he’s uh—he’s got a tan, too, I don’t.”

“Not much of one.” Michael snuffed, handing him a plastic sheath with a card reading “VISITOR” in it. “Needs to get out of his lab more.”

“Don’t know what that makes me, then.”

Laurie smiled, “means you’re one step off a ghost, buddy. Now, you wanna take that, and go over there where you see those metal detectors. They’ll get you processed and then you’re gonna go up to the second floor, that’s where Dex works. Since I’m gonna guess he didn’t tell you that, either.”

“Good guess.” “Dex”, so it’s good they know him. He must be friendly to the desk people. “Thank you.”

“Ah-huh. Enjoy your vacation.”

A wallet, keys, and two more purloined bagels, and he was on his way into core of the building. The elevator gave him the only respite from the dozens of eyes, all looking for their coworker, all seeing this ersatz version of the blood spatter analyst in his stead, one with the wrong kind of baked good. It was high-school all over again: people glancing, then staring, then chattering quietly among themselves about the glancing and the staring. If David had noticed how strange Dexter could be from two interactions, the people he knew professionally had to know, too, which… probably wasn’t helping.

I bet I’m the first visitor he’s ever had.

The elevator slowly drew up to the second floor. One-twenty-one. A bit early for three, sure, yeah, but it would be fine.

It would be fine.

It was not fine.

It was at first, yeah, in that brief moment before the doors opened, with people busy with work and therefore not caring about whomever the hell might be wandering out of the elevator, but the second a single person looked up, the rest started to follow.

And cops liked to stare.

It wasn’t a nightmare, with everyone pointing and gawking at him like he showed up naked to school, but it wasn’t much better; a dozen respectful adults looking at him like he had spinach in his teeth and they were pretending not to notice, not willing to say anything but unable to stop seeing it anyway.

I look like the donut-bearer. Great.

Walking forward further onto the floor, no one got up to stop him. He wasn’t quite sure if they were meant to and were just too stunned to bother, or if they didn’t care, but it made the little trot into a walk of shame instead. Walk of embarrassment, at the very least.

One of the coworkers—a man that looked more muscle than not, complete with massive biceps escaping from a nice blue polo—looked at him like an insect under a magnifying glass, and he did not like what he was seeing. Something caught hard in David’s throat, and he pivoted hard to his right instead, facing the desk of a man that had a much more pleasant expression on his face.

“’Scuse me, ah—can you tell me where I can find Dexter Morgan?”

“Have you tried a mirror?” Oh, he’s not from around here. Nice voice. The man leaned back in his chair, giving David a quick look up and down. “He didn’t mention we should expect someone.”

“So he told the front desk people, but not any of you guys?” David tried on a smile—best to get on this man’s good side.

“Ah, don’t take it personally.”

He’s looking at the bag. “Ah, I’m learning not to. He didn’t tell me about his little donut thing either, so now I’m showing up here with bagels like a moron.”

The cop—detective?—gave him an amused nod.

“They’re for everyone, whoever wants them.” He tipped the bag towards the man, making him stand—a normal response to free food. “I’ve got cinnamon, chocolate chip, poppyseed—I don’t really remember, I just told them to give me a variety and they kept putting stuff in there. Cream cheese, too.”

The man’s watch caught the bag briefly as he reached in. David looked at the shield around his neck, hoping for a name before giving up, eyes then being drawn to the shoulder holster he had on. “Dex doesn’t bring people in, what’s your name?”

“David. Fisher. David Fisher.”

“Well you’re good in my book, David Fisher.” A big bite of cinnamon-flavoured bread muffled his words.

“That’s good, officer… ah…?”

“Detective Batista.” He held out a broad hand, making David shift both bags into one arm to accept the greeting.

“Good to meet you.”Sweat suddenly felt cold and sticky down his back, holding hands with the long arm of the law. I hope he can’t feel my heartrate through my hand, ‘cause I think it just picked up by about twenty beats-per-minute.

“You too. Exciting to meet a friend of his from his life outside work for once.”

“Hah… so ah—where is—”

“He’s in his creep-fuck paradise, same place he’s been for the last hour.” David tried hard not to flinch; the muscled detective had stood and made his way over, footsteps silent. Something in his eyes was deeply untrusting—maybe it came with the job?

The other detective exhaled, half amused and half annoyed. “His blood room. Or… I don’t know what to call it, I guess. He’s trying to figure things out about a crime scene by doing it himself until he gets it right.”

Sounds like a… very normal activity, for a normal, well-adjusted man… “Where ah… okay, where is that?”

“Mm—” Batista swallowed his newest bite with some coffee to wash it down and then gestured to the small room with blinds drawn, “if you’re squeamish, I’d recommend waiting in his lab there—if you don’t mind Vince. He’s uh, he’s working on a bludgeoning right now, fake head. Not a pretty sight.”

“Oh, that’s not a problem. I’m—I’m a funeral director. I’ve seen worse—on real people.”

“’Course you have.” Officer Muscles, you need to stop looking at me like that before I lose it.

David tipped the bag yet again, hoping that this man with a bug up his ass would accept the peace offering of a turned cheek. It’s worked so far. “Bagel, sir?”

The two coworkers shared a look, the air briefly tense. They must be close; Batista had a stern look, but the soft kind, the one that came from a long-time friend telling you to relax, take it easy, step back a little. That was just speculation, though.

But it was immediately supported by Detective Huge-Arms plunging a reluctant hand into the bag and pulling out an an everything bagel. Didn’t work too well, since he just put it on his desk behind him instead of eating it, but it was something.

“I guess I can just wait around—”

“I’ll take you over.” Big arms crossed over a broad chest—would be fun to see if he wasn’t such a prick.

“Doakes—”

“If he’s not bothered by it, he’s not bothered by it. No sense in making him sit alone in the lab—might touch somethin’, set the freak off about his stuff being messed with.” ‘Doakes’ flashed a grin that didn’t seem very pleasant and brushed past him. David looked helplessly at Batista, only for him to mouth an amused ‘good luck’ before tipping his hat and returning to work.

Wow.

Might be fun to watch him walk away, if he wasn’t so… whatever about me.

Oh my God, is that it? Can he tell? Fuck—

He hurried to catch up after the brief head start, rolling his white paper bag back up tight.

“So you’re… detective Doakes, then?”

“What, your clone already tell you about me?”

“Not a word.” But something tells me there’s history here—or you’re just this venomous with everyone. Or just… people like me. “He hasn’t mentioned anyone by name—or not by name, actually. At least from work.”

“’Course he didn’t.” At least he was kind enough to hold the door for David as he refused to look at him.

“He seems like a private guy.”

“First time he’s ever brought anyone in, except that sister of his. Least she turned out normal.” Nice to have that confirmed, I guess. “What makes you so special?”

“Good looks?” No laugh. A smile more like a sneer. Okay, no, this goes deeper than just that. Whatever Dexter had going on with this guy, David was receiving splashback.

“Mm. Is that just what it is? You two got some gene that makes you look the same, talk the same, do the same kind of fucked up work? Reconstructing the dead?”

“I provide a valuable service to the community, I help people to say goodbye to their loved ones—and I don’t care what you have going on with Dexter, but I’m not a part of it. You just met me, you don’t get to talk to people like that.” And you need to stop before you try and dig deeper.

They stopped walking.

Fuck, is he gonna hit me?

Doakes regarded him slowly, face still stern but thinking harder now. Then, a sluggish blink, and a slight lift of his eyebrows. “Guess when they split you two in half, you got the spine.”

He didn’t wait for a response, just turning and holding the next door for him.

“He’s in there. Go be his problem.”

“Enjoy your bagel, detective. Sir.”

Only when the door shut safely behind him did David let out a sigh of relief. No more workplace bully, no more cops—apparently, just Dexter and bagels and a bloody room.

A bloody room he could not see—there was a window, but it was currently covered by paper inside, red specks dotting the length of it. A cop had warned him against entering, probably expecting the average citizen with the average tolerance for blood and guts, fake or otherwise—but David was a professional. He’d seen decapitations, dismemberments, bludgeonings, and even two-day-old drownings—and he’d seen a man die in front of him. On him. It was his job to handle death, real death, death with consequences and real stench.

He’d be fine.

“Knock knock.”

 

Notes:

beta reading has now taken place so shoutout serpercival for catching my dumbass putting 'for' instead of 'four' and other such nonsense

Chapter 5: Things Can Get Pretty Busy Around Here

Summary:

Dexter gets to show David around his workplace, and doesn't want the day to end.

Notes:

uff meant to have this out sooner but kept getting stuck on points where anyone other than the two idiots started talking. but! roughly a week later here we are.

“Come in!” Dexter winced at his own raised voice echoing back off of the face shield, pushing it up and out of his eyes. The spatter down the front of him was distasteful, but not completely unhelpful; so far, he’d deduced that the suspect must’ve absolutely ruined their clothes, and probably needed some intense hair-washing for their trouble—plus a new pair of shoes if they were anything other than impermeable leather.

Wrinkles formed as the paper puckered outwards from the vacuum of an opening door, crinkling an echo around the small room.

“Smells kinda sweet in here—” That’s my voice. Dexter spread his fingers out, pulling back his sleeve—one thirty-one. He’s early. “I hope you’re not eating in here—”

“Ah—” Eyes flew back to the half bludgeoned fake skulls on the table, the bloody tools. He hopped over a large pool to intercept the guest. “Maybe you shouldn’t—”

“What?” David stopped, arm outstretched, holding the paper up and peeking from under it like a kid in a pillow fort, his view of the room obscured by his mirror “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. Unless—unless you don’t want me to see…?”

“No! I don’t—I don’t care, just…” I don’t know if I want you looking at me covered in blood again. Might give you some ideas. “Most people aren’t a fan of this stuff, to put it mildly.”

“I’ve had to piece together too many jigsaw puzzles that used to be someone’s head to let it ruin my lunch anymore. It’s fake, anyway.” His shadow fully entered the room, attention coming to the bloodied stumps and instruments sitting on the table before glancing around at the walls with gentle curiosity. “Glad I don’t have to deal with this one, Jesus Christ.”

Curiosity. Not disgust. Not the childlike amazement he’d seen sometimes, the blue-eyed wonder of someone who hadn’t seen the world yet, but instead a refined, adult curiosity. A professional sort of interest. Huh. “Yeah! Yeah… I’m only in the business of taking it apart. Thankfully. You’re—you’re early, did you…?”

“Yeah, sorry about that—was going a little stir crazy, figured I’d just wait around til you were ready, but uh… one of your coworkers walked me over here.”

Dexter kept his eyes on him, searching for any hint of discomfort as he leaned in to inspect the head, mouth slightly opened and neck outstretched. No such hints appeared. “Guess you… ‘met the gang’, huh?”

“Two of them, at least.” His interest shifted to the tools, then to the tool-holder. Heat prickled under Dexter’s off-white gloves. “What’s the deal with Doakes? Bad breakup?”

“I don’t date men.”

“...it was a joke.”

“Oh.” I guess he feels more comfortable with me, since I know that about him? That’s how it went last time, at least, someone else knows and that makes them happy. Or maybe everyone knows, it’s something else? I can’t tell. “I don’t really know why he doesn’t like me, says he gets a weird vibe from me. I think he just hates the enthusiasm I have for my job.”

“Mm. So—” David approached the array of potential murder weapons. “What are you up to in here? Detective Batista gave the impression it’s more than just abstract art—something about a bludgeoning?”

Abstract art… that’s… a charitable way to look at it. “I’m trying to figure out the exact weapon the suspect used. It’s… similar to a lot of wounds I’ve seen before, but there’s a few things about it that don’t fit.”

Tentative hands reached towards the display before yanking themselves backwards, either remembering their manners of look, don’t touch or unpleasantly remembering the warning of deep, deep shit.

“Go ahead—if you want. It’s all fake. Just don’t get upset if you get messy, it’s mostly corn syrup.”

Something resembling embarrassment flashed on his face—that was how it was supposed to look on his features, with slightly terse lips and hooded eyes, a half-swallow in the form of a gentle flex in his platysma, and a barely-noticable dilation of blood vessels in his cheeks that Dexter was certain he never did—before he picked up one of the hammers, inspecting the end without any real consideration. Two fingers extended up the handle while the rest held the rubber firm. Good form.

“It’s a blunt instrument, but… that doesn’t really narrow it down. A lot of improvised weapons are blunt. I do know it’s got a rounded end on it, and another, smaller piece sticking out from the center, something kind of square. Heavy at the head, and probably held in one hand, but…”

“But you don’t know what.”

“Exactly. I’ve already put our special friend at about my—our height, but I’ve been here forever trying to figure this out…” The answer must’ve been staring him right in the face, like it always seemed to be, but this predator’s vision was based on movement, and the solution had yet to make a run for it.

“So you’ve just been in here an hour beating up fake heads?”

That sounds… not great. “And doing a lot of measuring. Lots and lots of measuring.”

“Right.” Hammer replaced, David looked at the sticky red residue on his hand and grimaced, reaching into the smaller of his two bags and pulling out a napkin.

“What’s uh—you brought… something?”

“Oh—right, I—I brought bagels. For your office. Your coworkers. And then chocolate croissants for you and me.”

Something about David was strange, today. What was a mystery, but his smiles came too quickly, the stop-stutter of his speech was becoming noticeable. Even his eyes seemed a little bit unfocused, not quite looking at things, but instead looking beyond them. ‘Stir crazy’ might’ve been an understatement.

“Figured it was near enough to lunch time.”

“That’s uh—thanks. Thank you. Was probably going to skip my lunch break and just have a snack anyway…” The sudden possibility of a meal made him remember that the scent of sticky-sweet corn syrup was usually used in the production of foodstuffs, not just recreated crime scenes, and it make his stomach rumble.

“Should we—”

Dexter’s hand stopped short of the bag. A sudden standoff began—one man hungry, knowing the entire room would have to be cleaned anyway and a few crumbs wouldn’t be the end of the world, and the other confused, probably disgusted by the sights around him and not wanting to spoil his appetite.

“...I’ll take a standing lunch, if you promise not to smash anything while I’m eating.”

Oh. The corners of Dexter’s mouth turned up comfortably. “I’ll take that deal.”

David reached back into the bag as Dexter pulled his gloves off, eschewing them for a croissant with chocolate drizzled overtop, gently dusted with powdered sugar. Few steps up from a snack cake. It was by no means something Dexter would pick for himself, instead usually preferring something that didn’t take much thought on how to approach, but small treats could be allowed. It was a one-handed food as well.

“Don’t eat it in one bite, what’s the hurry? I don’t even have mine out yet.”

“I said I was hungry.”

“You didn’t, actually.”

“Then I’m saying it now.” He leaned on the faux-bloody wall behind him, plastic cover-all crinkling and sticking to the backspatter. “But fine...why’d I get something special anyway? You decide I’m too good for a bagel?”

“If you want a bagel, go nuts. Eat the whole bag for all I care. I just wanted to get us both a little treat.” David held his lunch more carefully, sugar snowing down onto his sage-green tie in tiny, lazy flakes. “Figured we could use it.”

Is this what a friend does? Just… shows up with food, asks you to eat?

Could get used to friends. Maybe.

Then again, this friend knows I killed someone, so the dynamic is a little different. And he doesn’t know why I killed them, or about the hundred others, so maybe—maybe not.

“So? How’s the day treated you?”

“Oh, uh… fine.” Dexter unwound a flaky strip, tearing it off and placing it on his tongue. “Same as most days. No crime scene today, so just… processing things, writing up reports of crime scenes—like yesterday’s.”

“The axe murder.” His twin nodded sagely, unbothered. “Any leads?”

“I...don’t know if I can say. I probably can’t say.”

“Do I look like a reporter?”

“You look like a blood spatter analyst, actually.”

Return of the giggle, a noise that was starting to become a delight, a noise in response to a joke that wasn’t funny enough to warrant it. In all honesty it might have been a pity laugh. Still, the sound of it, a fleeting burst of joy, echoed back out of Dexter’s own throat, startling him. I sound like that? Really? No wonder I get weird looks, I sound like a fucking clown.

“We don’t have anything new.” There wasn’t anyone listening to this room anyway. “Everything is still matching up with what I already thought. Passionate crime, there’s a missing ex-girlfriend involved, friends say they definitely had an axe in the garage that has since also gone missing, so…”

“So you already figured everything out.”

“Well—” If it gave Doakes the creeps, it might scare off a flighty funeral director. “I get a sense about these things. Hunches. Comes from experience.” Won’t share experience in what, though.

“Sounds… helpful.” A people-pleasing smile spread across his features, taking another bite of his lunch. David was a neat eater—don’t stare again, he notices when you stare.

“It is.” He pulled another strip off the croissant, hearing the gentle clatter of crumbs on the papered floor. “Least my boss thinks it is. And my coworkers, depending on who you ask. And Deb—”

“I’d imagine it helps an investigation if you get put on the right track from the start.”

“Oh, sure.” Whether they get the guy after my work is done is none of my concern, though. The effort stops at my blood report, its up to the good people of the Miami Metro PD whether or not they send killers to jail or my table. “Like this one—there was a half-hearted attempt to clean up the crime scene, a witness saw a car speeding away, so it clearly wasn’t premeditated, or at the very least was thought out very poorly.

“Most times, when someone kills someone else that they care about—on accident I mean—they want to call the police, the guilt is too much. They drove away, meaning they drove to get there, so I’m assuming they showed up on purpose to talk with our victim. One wound, so… my guess is they got mad, maybe an argument, and they hit the victim over the head with… whatever. They realized what they did, they panicked, tried to clean up, realized it was too much blood—”

“Happens, with head wounds.”

“...right.” I should give him more credit, I guess. He does look at dead people for a living. “So they just took the murder weapon and left. Given how anxious they were at the crime scene, they probably haven’t done this before, so they probably don’t want to keep holding onto it for very long. I’d bet my boat that they tossed it in a dumpster on their way home.”

“So—so if you have what the murder weapon is, you can narrow the search.”

“Give that man a lollipop.” The croissant was now bare, chocolate and sugar and brown crust peeled to reveal a fluffy, white interior. For once, talking shop with a layman felt… easy. No reporter instinct to dig for the gory details, no shock and horror from your everyday civilian. Just a slight overarching pity, and otherwise normal conversation. “Murder weapon means a lot to a jury.”

“I think I can see why Doakes gets a ‘weird vibe’ from you.”

“You can?” ‘Danger, danger’ flashed the baser parts of his brain, the kind trained to fight or flee. All good things must come to an end, I guess.

“Yeah. You ah—you just… put yourself in the shoes of a killer to catch them. It’s a little scary.”

Dexter tilted his head sideways, considering it. It’s not that much of a leap for me. “Well—”

“I mean, it’s cool, but it’s a little scary. Especially when you do that stare thing.”

“Stare thing?”

“Don’t worry about it.” David smirked. He seemed to enjoy that, making Dexter sweat only to pull it all away with a little hand-wave. “It’s just funny to read about it in a book and then see you doing it.”

“What book, what are you talking about?”

“A fucked-up book, I read half of it this morning.” Taking another bite of his pastry seemed to indicate that was the end of his explanation.

“Well.. I’m… glad you think it’s also cool, I guess.” Don’t think I’ve ever heard it described quite like that. Abstract art and ‘cool’ killer instincts.

“Do you have pictures?”

“What?”

“Of the wounds. I’ve seen a lot of shit on my table, maybe I can help.”

His table. “Ah—I do, but… you’re sure? This is a small space, and if you send that pastry back up, I’m gonna have to smell that for the next—”

“I’m fine. Nothing you could do would make me nauseous. Show me the picture.”

Nice thought, but don’t be so sure about that. Dexter held the croissant in his mouth and opened up the plastic folder kept only in service of protecting the photos from food dye, passing over the shiny sheets and waiting for the recoil that never came.

He watched as David’s chewing slowed, molars carefully grinding pastry to digestible paste. Delicate fingers shuffled carefully between the various photos Dexter had taken himself, holding them closer, then further, then sideways, then straight. Close examination, steady examination. David swallowed, bringing his food-filled hand to his mouth, picking at the side of his thumbnail with a lower canine in soft clicks. There were gears turning behind that furrowed brow—is it really that intense?—and his chin lifted before his eyes did.

“What about—what about one of those uh…” David handed the photos back, “they’re made specifically for nuts—fuck, what’re they called? There’s the base tool, and then you put different heads on them so they fit onto different nuts. It’s a wrench or something, they click really loud, and you can spin them around in one direction at a time so you don’t have to take it on and off, there’s a switch on the back that flips between tightening and loosening?”

He’s lucky I have decent visualization skills. “...a ratchet?”

He snapped his fingers, pointing with a grin. “That’s it. That’s what they’re called. Right? They have that little square peg on the end—” He came to Dexter’s side, hovering close, touching chest to shoulder and indicating the mystery mark on the brain matter. “See? The smaller hole’s a little square. Maybe it’s a ratchet without a—I dunno what you’d call it. A fitting or whatever.”

“...a ratchet.” Huh.

Dexter put the photos down, heading to the door and entering the viewing room.

The cabinets had been more or less used for pure storage by maintenance staff regardless of their real purpose, and one of them had long-since asked Dexter if they could keep their tools there for safekeeping. Among the various wrenches and screwdrivers was one socket set, complete with a finely-polished ratchet big and old enough to handle the prehistoric nuts around the precinct that no one had ever even considered refitting. A tool rarely used by your everyday person—Dexter himself couldn’t remember the last time he used one.

In his hand, the weighty tool could easily make a murderer—heavy all the way through, pointed from the drive square and perfect for punching a cherry-pit-sized hole in the back of someone’s skull. Small enough to handle and swing easily, but long and heavy enough to get a good amount of torque into your intended target—it was all the convenience of a hammer, really, just in a smaller package.

He nearly tripped over himself hurrying back into the room, heart thundering in his chest as he turned the fake head to a fresh spot, raising his arm to strike, ready to throw a pitch hard enough to make a squared half-inch-by-half-inch hole in the parietal bone—

“Jesus, Dexter, you’re the one with the poncho—”

“Get behind me.” The order came out excitedly, a little bit too much of a bark. Nevertheless the man obliged, peeking over his shoulder as he jerked his head down for the face shield.

One quick, slippery, pretty strike.

Down his hand came, slick with sweat, lodging the tool, deep, deep into the back of the facsimile victim’s skull, cutting through non-existent hair and scalp and connective tissue and seven millimeters of bone. His wrist over-turned, a twinge of pain coming from stressed tendon and muscle, unable to handle the sudden weight jerking his hand forward. The blood arced out in a fine dance, stringing out over his tools, the wall, his arms, the floor, gently blanketing a five-foot radius in various forms of impact spatter. It dribbled down from the new wound weakly, no real heart pumping it out from the edges of the opportunistic murder weapon, no real life being ended. A water balloon explosion, for lack of a better term.

It squished as it came out.

Left behind was an indent, of course, a sort of more-than-half-circle, deeper in the center than the edges in every respect and an inch long, coming to a crease. Probably not immediately fatal, but there likely wasn’t any coming back from a wound like this—it had burrowed decently deep, and bits of skull were no doubt now embedded forever in the fake brain beneath.

Near the center of the indent, however, was a small, square, simple hole, a bulls-eye for a killer. An answer for an hour of work, scared out of the brush by the man behind him.

A smile crept up on him, spreading wide across his face, lifting his brows as he turned to face his own reflection, similarly elated. It grabbed him around the shoulders, set off at a giggle again, and gave him a small shake—

and then remembered it was wearing a white shirt, and that Dexter was covered in red food dye.

---

“Closed-casket, for sure.”

David pivoted side to side in the red chair, resting the hand with his can of soda on his knee. He looked right at home in Dexter’s lab, even if he didn’t fit Miami—sun-shy, professional, relaxed despite being surrounded by murder, plus the whole ‘mirror image’ thing. If an intern stopped by while Dexter had been in the bathroom, they might’ve mistaken David for the real deal.

“I mean, Federico can do some amazing things, but there’s just—if there’s no head, there’s no head. Can’t build a head.”

“Well, you can, its possible, but I don’t know if a family would be committed enough to open-casket to push for it.”

“I hope to God I never meet anyone that would. It’s one thing if there’s just a few skin abrasions, at least there’s something you can reference outside of just a photo.” He spun in the chair a little, looking around the small room with the same expression he had the first eight times. Stir crazy, right. Maybe we should walk around soon.

“What do you do if there’s a limb missing?”

“Depends—did it come with the body, or is it missing missing? And what’s the condition?”

“Uh—” They’d already detailed all sorts of flesh wounds, how grafts of different materials could be placed over missing skin and painted to perfectly imitate a living person. David was a font of information on all the ways you could make a dead person’s broken arm look new, how to mix together different under and overtones to hide the pallid and purple hue of death, the best ways to keep a corpse from leaking into their casket and causing a scene at the viewing—the only place he remained humble about was facial reconstruction, and Dexter had no way of determining whether or not it was a justified self-deprecation. “Let’s say its with the body, and it’s a clean cut.”

“Then we sew it back on and hide the seam. Usually easier for men, since they’re usually buried in suits, so it doesn’t have to hold up to as high of scrutiny.”

“That makes sense.” Dexter tore off another piece of the bagel, setting it on his tongue. Near two thousand crime scenes, and it had barely ever occurred to him that someone would have to fix it—sure, it had occurred to him that someone had to clean the area afterwards, and he was even a little sympathetic to it, given his line of work; working on the inside of a big plastic bag kept him out of trouble, but it also cut down on hours of work scrubbing the floor, walls, ceiling, and every tiny speck that might be leftover from a crime.

But not once in the hundred-and-change times he’d cut a person into nine, neat, perfect little pieces did he think about the work never-to-be that would go into putting them back together.

“What if it’s a head? That came off, I mean. Pristine condition, other than… not being attached to the body.”

“If it’s in pristine condition, and they want open-casket…” David smiled a bit, a very careful and practiced act. Professional. “I’d recommend a high collar to the family.”

“Right.” He returned the expression—it also helped to talk about bodies at such length in service of furthering his camouflage. To Dexter, a body was just a body; before, it had been a person, but by the time he would be handling it, it would be meat. Very illegal meat to own, and not the kind that would be appetizing pan-seared and with a sprig of rosemary, but meat all the same. Nothing special about it.

David, however, had a sort of… reverence, but not an aversion. He could talk about, look at, and even touch them, but spoke about them with a strange delicacy. He spoke about them like people rather than parts, meaning he could say occasionally crude or strange things without speaking ill of the dead. It was an interesting spin on how he heard his coworkers talk about the topic, only talking about things he found amusing when not in the presence of the body itself, not just openly remarking on the dead hooker’s clothes there on the scene.

It seemed like the perfect balance to strike, in this line of work. “What’s the worst one you’ve ever seen?”

David sucked air through his teeth, nodding. “Gonna have to narrow that one. Any drowning victim usually ends up cremated, but not before the family jerks us around long enough for them to end up in the basement and the stink lingers for a month.”

A little part of him enjoyed talking shop, too. “Then the worst you’ve seen that you still had to put together again.”

Studying David had quickly become a favourite pastime. ‘Heavy thought’ perched on his face, now well-learned; lips puckered slightly at the corners, brow pulled down and gaze cast to the side, eyes deep with consideration. He drew the back of his fingers along his chin, to his jaw, and then up to his ear, circling around the seashell shape of it before jerking his head sideways like he could suddenly hear the light buzzing above him, a slight upwards tilt. Dexter himself knew he sometimes suffered from frozen-face-syndrome, a by-product of constantly policing his natural responses to the point of acceptability.

He watched his shadow lace his fingers together, a ‘cracking knuckles’ pose turned in towards his body as he chewed the inside of his cheek. David was a man that used his hands pretty regularly to get his point across, even when he wasn’t saying anything. The slight movement of tapping an index finger on the back of his hand held his attention to his chest, and by proxy, to the nice sage-green tie fastened around his neck.

Oh. I—I guess he didn’t leave the room unscathed. Am… I supposed to tell him about it?

“I guess one of the worst ones was this incident at a work site. Bunch of rebar sticking up out of the ground—”

I would want to know, if it were me, but that’s not the best measure for behaviour.

“—Swiss cheese, in a word. Thankfully the poor man went pretty quickly—”

Maybe it’s like having black pepper in your teeth. You tell people privately, so they aren’t embarrassed by it.

“—the sixth hole, my father gave me the reigns—”

What’s there to be embarrassed about, though? It isn’t something people do on purpose, and they have no way of knowing—it’s like a taillight being out.

“—suit that didn’t even fit him. My mother felt bad, naturally, and said she’d tailor—”

Well, I don’t want him to get a ticket.

“—but at least it was good practice—”

“You got something.”

David’s mouth hung open a moment, palm still upturned with explanation. The fingers curled. “What?”

“Your tie. Gets everywhere—” Dexter reached and pointed, gingerly tapping the spot with his finger as David looked down. “You’re gonna have to scrub a while.”

“Shit.” Annoyance, that one Dexter didn’t need help with, that was one he could feel—picked up in one side of the mouth, angry eyebrows, missing the tell-tale nose crinkling he’d seen on other pissed-off expressions. Deft hands made quick work of the knot, slipping it out from around his neck.

“Why are you taking it off?”

“I’m not gonna wear a dirty tie all day.” It’s just a little smudge, why’s it matter? “Must’ve happened when I grabbed you.”

“Or cast-off. That’s—“

“When you yanked the thing out, I got it.”

Oh. He was… paying attention. Huh. “Sorry.”

“And I really liked this one, too.”

He’s sad. It’s under the annoyance, I think. Something settled against his lungs, pushing out to his windpipe and stabbing at his throat. He tried to rub it away with his hand, swallowing what felt like a golf ball: “It’s just food dye, it’s not that hard to get out. Just some… good old-fashioned elbow grease and a toothbrush.”

“You’re sure? It’s green, a red stain’ll make brown…”

It’s my mess to clean. “We both know I can clean up pretty well.” He’s my responsibility, “how about I take it, and I can clean it for you, and you get it back sometime before you leave?”

“This is coming from the man that threw away my entire outfit this week because it had blood on it.” David tilted his head down, raising his eyebrows and squinting a bit. Is that him poking fun at it? In his own strange way, making fun of me?

I should encourage it. Dexter grinned, doing his best to act embarrassed, mirroring David’s look before he’d grabbed the hammer, “I promise I’ll do a better job this time.”

David held out three fingers, carefully wrapping the tie into a neat oval around them. “Uh-huh.”

“Besides, it’s fake this time, so there’s—”

Coiled fabric slapped into his hand. “Shut up before you talk me out of it.”

“I don’t know how you drink that stuff.”

“Same way as everyone else; I put it in my mouth and swallow it.”

Four o’clock. It was hard to believe—the only indication of the passing hours had been the growing urge to get up and stretch his legs.

“You don’t know how many other people have drank from it.”

“Sure, but I know who could’ve drank from it. Besides, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone get anything to drink from here other than coffee and water.”

“Why even have orange juice?”

Spending time with Dexter had seemed to bolster David’s confidence. He’d been forced to close the blinds most of the way after noticing his guest intentionally pivoting away from the windows every chance he got, but now he stood boldly in the kitchen, leaning on the counter and watching Dexter enjoy some juice.

Well, maybe enjoy was a strong word. The bendy straw was nice, at least. And with David’s interrogation, the old instinct he’d long determined was ‘sibling rivalry’, usually reserved for Deb and Deb alone, started kicking him in the side and imploring him to insist it was the best thing he had ever consumed. Never admit you’re wrong, at least on small stuff.

“You sure you don’t want anything?”

“No. Hate the texture on those little triangle cups for the water cooler, I’ll pass.”

Common ground. “Can’t argue with you there. And I get they’re triangles because the don’t want people to put them down random places, but I hate the commitment of it—you have to hold it ‘til its completely empty.”

“Or dump it out.”

“But what if I want to just… set it down for a second? I need both hands for something?”

“Shit-outta-luck, then.” David’s eyes wandered over to the rest of the office, probably happy that they’d acclimated to the sight of two of them and were no longer staring. “People’ve made cups like that since ancient Greece, actually—”

“Triangles?”

“No, cups you can’t put down.” He swatted Dexter’s shoulder with the back of his hand in mock-annoyance. So he’s also getting that sort of instinct. Good. “Ones that had an animal’s head instead of a foot, ones completely round on the bottom—those are called mastos—”

“Mastos…?”

“Yes, as in breast. It’s a fitting name—”

You’re supposed to tease him, too. That’s part of the deal. “And why does a funeral director know about ancient Greek breast cups?”

David’s mouth opened in a flustered display, closing a few times, “I read a lot. Is it a crime to be well-educated?”

“Wouldn’t know. I’m not a cop, just the blood guy.”

That earned an eyeroll, an all-too-familiar motion meaning he had won the interaction, getting Dexter to grin again. Most social interactions weren’t about wining or losing, merely being an exercise in play for the fun of it, but this type of teasing had little victories littered all across the battleground of conversation—and it was a type of warfare he’d already perfected with Deb.

It’s… weird. I might miss talking to him, when he’s gone. It’s a good thing he’s so eager to be around me, plus the tie—

“What about Greek breast cups?” The voice was almost as recognizable as the words themselves, meaning Dexter didn’t even have to turn to identify the man that had just walked in around the corner. Of course, he still did turn to face Vince, his ‘greetings’ expression already plastered on, because that was what was polite.

“David was just telling me about some pottery.”

“David—” Words dried up on his lab partner’s tongue as he looked to see the counterfeit forensics expert now leaning off of the counter. “Woah.”

“Hi.”

“Hi, yeah.” Masuka set down his mug on the counter, now focused on the newcomer, walking right up into his personal space for a better look. “This is some Twilight Zone shit, man.”

Slight tensing in his cheek muscles. A pinned-down quality at the corner of his lips. The most minuscule lift of his brow. In a word: discomfort.

“Yes, this is my friend David—” Dexter strode across the kitchen, giving Vince a tap on the shoulder before standing next to David—a united front. Thankfully, he knew how to read the blood analyst’s warnings and took a step back. “He’s just here for a tour.”

“Tour? Angel said he got here hours ago, that’s one hell of a tour.”

David pulled a slight face. “Well, I also came for a social visit.”

“Since when do you have social visits from your clone, Dex?”

“I have a life outside of work, you know. And he’s not my clone,” I’ve found my least favourite thing about David. “He’s just a guy that happens to... look and sound like me.”

“Hey, that’s a bit of an understatement.” Vince picked his mug back up, giving the cold and aged coffee still in the pot a sniff. Bit late in the day for a cup. “You’re practically twins, two of the same guy with different haircuts.”

The embalmer leaned back on the counter once again, seeming to relax. “We’re very different people, I assure you.”

“Dex and Dave… hey, you know, twins are supposed to be the same everywhere.” That lecherous smile started creeping up on his face. It was never very difficult to see his remarks coming, clearly telegraphed to anyone that had spent more than five minutes with him. “Are—”

“No, we haven’t had a dick-measuring contest yet, but we’ll make sure to get you the results as soon as possible.” Or two minutes, apparently. Dexter couldn’t stop a little smirk on his lips, sipping more citrus—David could hold his own.

Vince made that low motor sound that he called a laugh and poured the stale coffee down the drain.

“Now you’re right, I’ve been here several hours, but Dexter here has kept me all to himself.” Ah, he’s pinning me as the adversary here so he can connect with Vince. Smart. “Don’t know any names.”

“Vincent Masuka. Use Vince.”

“David Fisher. Not Dave.” David-not-Dave crossed his arms. “Only my brother calls me Dave, ‘d like to keep it that way. Sounds like mockery from anyone else.”

“David.” Small nod. “So are we gonna see more of you around here?”

“Ah—probably not.”

Everyone keeps making a deal out of me finally having a guest. I should make a joke, show I’m in on it. “Already chased another one away, damn.”

“You’ll find the right one eventually, Dexter, don’t sweat it.” And his lab partner was game for a little of his self-teasing. Good.

David rolled his eyes again—another success. “No, I just live across the country. Don’t have a lot of reasons I’d be in the neighbourhood for a visit.”

Dexter watched David’s eyes catch on something over his shoulder, and looked over to see Angel entering the kitchen. He took another step towards his newest companion, knowing from past experiences that people generally liked their allies nearest to them when faced with hardship.

“I guess if there’s another funeral director’s convention, maybe, but other than that—”

“So—” Angel peeked into the nearly-empty bag of David’s offerings, taking out a plain bagel and opening the fridge for cream cheese. “How’d you two meet, anyway?”

“Yeah, ‘cause—no offense Dex, but you’re not exactly the type to meet a lot of new people.”

That’s me, I told him I’d handle it. “Well—David’s here on vacation. Was out enjoying the city, got a little carried away, and I saw him and thought he could use a hand—“

“Mistake we all make at some point, least you got it out of the way now, eh?” Angel spread the topping onto the slightly-stale piece of bread with a plastic knife. David tutted at his own expense.

“So I tried to give him a ride home, but ended up just letting him crash at my place. He was pretty messed up, made me feel bad…”

David nudged his side, “thank you, Dexter, now I sound like a sad, drunk puppy to all your friends.”

“Is that not an accurate description?” He’s easy to tease. Dexter itched his cheek. “But I let him sleep it off, we had breakfast and I dropped him off at his hotel with my number, in case he needed someone in Miami for something, and he called later and asked to treat me to lunch.”

That part of the story seemed to catch attention, at least from Angel. He leaned on the opposite counter, eyeing the both of them and glancing to Masuka with incredulity. “So this is the tourist you got lunch with yesterday? You two met—what’s that, Monday night?”

“That is correct.” I guess this solves the mystery for him. He’s right, I don’t really have people… hanging out with me. Other than Deb—

“Jesus, you brought a guy you met two days ago to work?” Despite his words seeming harsh on paper, his detective friend was smiling, bemused with something in Dexter’s behaviour that the analyst couldn’t decipher.

“Well, he wanted to get together, and I had work—”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” his ally lolled his head sideways to give him a glance, “but it was a little weird to ask me here. There’s a million things you can do in Miami, and you took me to work.”

What’s wrong with taking him to work? It’s a place the public doesn’t get to see, it’s better than some tourist location. Plus, he’s having fun. “Did you have something else in mind?”

“No, but… you know. The beach, a bar—”

“You just went to a bar.”

“Dinner, then.”

“But we already had lunch.”

Something in his answer made David glance back at the others in the room, looking exasperated yet amused. “Is he always like this?”

Angel smiled, a knowing expression plastered on his face as he made eye contact with Dexter. Strangers probably had more in common than him and the detective. Why he had decided over these years that Dexter was one of his closest friends was still a mystery, but it made the hard work of maintaining social interactions that much easier when the other person had already selected him as a lifetime companion.

Dexter reflected the grin.

“Always has been.”

--

“I might not get to it right away.”

“It doesn’t matter, just get it back before I have to leave.”

“Yes, sir.” Dexter did a half salute as he slipped the sage-green tie into his work bag, safely nestled and awaiting cleaning. The work day had come to a close, and for once, the slow deliberate drag of hours spent in his lab hadn’t felt so… slow. The work went by quickly, the empty spaces were easy to fill, the hours shortened to minutes and before he knew it the sun was dropping and he’d been in the office later than he needed to be, still stuck on the pros and cons of various caskets, the differences between each, the comparison between them and coffins. David was slipping his suit jacket back onto his arms, ready to walk out alongside him.

“Oh, so I outrank you?”

“You’re older, apparently.” Thankfully, the interruptions were blissfully few. David had stayed hiding out in the lab while Dexter dropped off the news on the ratchet to LaGuerta, but it hadn’t really mattered when she decided to come see the man responsible for the break in the case anyway. For a moment, her eyes had lit up, seeing a perfect clone of the apparent object of her affection, one that might actually nibble the bait—the spark had left as soon as David opened his mouth, though. She was still pleasant, and thankful, and stayed to ask how they met, when they met, if they knew they looked the same—the usual battery, as Dexter had grown accustomed to.

“Not by much.” Sergeant Doakes had bothered him about a blood report in the same way he always did. David pointed out—after the man had walked away, of course—that he probably just used it as an excuse to scold Dexter in some way, an outlet for his personal vendetta. Thankfully, said personal vendetta had not extended to David—at least not in a way observable to Dexter—aside from some glares, but it seemed more that the sergeant’s face was just stuck that way rather than actual malice.

“By some.” It had been a good day. His first visitor to the office had fit in swimmingly, participating in friendly ribbing, in snack-bringing, in office gossip—sometimes better than Dexter himself did. David had enjoyed himself, undoubtedly, and Dexter had further cemented his normalcy by being friends with such a pleasant person.

“Whatever. Shall we?” David gripped the handle on the door, gesturing.

Does the day have to end already? “Are you hungry?

Furrowed brow, slight squint—suspicion. The answers came easily, now. “Why?”

“You said dinner, we could have dinner. Since you don’t know what’s good around here.”

“When I said that, I meant it as a hypothetical.” David opened the door, waiting as Dexter walked through. “Do you want to have dinner?”

“It’s dinnertime, yeah.”

“No, do you want to have dinner with me?”

The thought spun around his head, coiling around his brain like a starved snake with shocking quickness; do I want to keep hanging around David? The great, irrepressible yearning most people had for other people had always eluded him, including when sharing a meal. It was a vulnerable time for an animal, to be eating. Long-embedded vestigial instincts of having to fight off scavengers from their food having transformed into an urge to be around friends when it came time to chow down. To Dexter, each meal was equally nourishing regardless of if the chair across from him sat empty or full, excepting maybe an occasional visit from his sister—

David had been looking at him for several seconds. Am I doing the stare thing again? He’s... expectant.

“Yes.”

“Fine,” they continued their walk through the office. People glanced up, much more bored with the circus act than they had been out the outset of the day. “Then we can have dinner.”

“We can?”

“But we’re splitting the check this time. Those bagels put me back twenty bucks.”

“Sounds good to me.” Pressing the elevator button, he found a small smile on his face. Talking with David had been educational, even fun at times, and he’d get to do it more.

Of course, fun was a rather strong word for Dexter; most things boiled down to interesting, generally un-annoying, or somewhat satisfying—the gentle release of putting the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle, looking at a well-organized cupboard, hitting all the green lights on your way home.

I guess talking to him feels like that.

“Can I go home and change first? Everything else with the no tie looks… weird.”

“It looks fine, you’re still better dressed than me—” Bzzt bzzt. “But fine, if you insist, sure.”

Dexter fished the phone from his pocket, flipping it open.

One text from the other D. Morgan across the screen. Simple, short, sweet: ‘dinner? promo at room 52.’

The elevator doors slowly slid open, revealing a blissfully empty car that David quickly entered.

“Hey, ah—” He stepped over the threshhold, reaching to press the ground floor only to see it already selected. “My sister wants to have dinner.”

“Oh.” The same wilt came over him that first struck at the sight of the stain, a sort of resigned sadness that he tried to paint over. “Well, we can raincheck, I don’t want to get in the way—”

“We can split the check three ways. Or I could pay for her.”

Once the elevator filled with the usual silence it had, bereft of any music to break up the lack of small-talk that usually trademarked the space, Dexter spared a glance sideways to see David wearing the same face he had on walking out to ham and eggs the morning after a murder.

“They’re having some kind of promotion at Room 52, apparently, so it’ll be less expensive.” Continued silence. What’s he wanting? “They have crab legs, if you like crab.”

“Good margaritas.”

David heaved a sigh, the kind Dexter had heard from Angel after a particularly long and exhausting day in the sun, rising off a bench in the shade to get back into the fray.

“Fine, I already met all your friends today, why not meet the family, too.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Notes:

once again give it up for serpercival for looking over this prolonged yap sesh

hoping to have the rest done [at least in the year 2000] by christmas and thats all my plans in terms of release schedule rip

Chapter 6: It's Nice to Unwind

Summary:

David gets to meet Dexter's sister.

Notes:

ayyy posted in a week, nice

Neon lights danced in the reflections of dew-wet pavement outside, rain having stopped but still lingering, turning up the humidity just to see the people sweat. Locals seemed to pay it no mind, happily eating and drinking and mingling without a second thought to the slickness underfoot. Energetic music sounded from a speaker, perfect for finding a decent-looking stranger and asking them to a dance that might end up someplace scandalous, depending on how much they both had to drink.

But now wasn’t the time for any of that. He was never inclined to much dancing anyway. Or decent-looking strangers.

“There she is.” Nearish but not next to the door sat the pre-picked table, complete with the first guest already seated up on a high stool, heels hooked on the bar connecting two chair legs. She was currently resting her cheek on her fist, examining the menu with a bored look on her face. An outside table, and why not? It was a nice night, and at least the gentle wind could help blow away the smell of sweat glued to the backs of each patron.

His accomplice leaned over, cheeks close, seeing where Dexter was looking. “Oh, there. Hey—I was thinking on the way over, do you think she’d think its funny if I go over there first?”

“Funny?” David had gone home for a tie and came back wearing a more casual-style but well-fit aloha shirt—do they just call them Hawaiian shirts?—with the same slacks and formal shoes. The outfit itself was fine—reminded him of Angel, mostly—but it didn’t seem quite right for David in particular. I think he should do one more button, that would fix it.

“Well—I don’t know what kind of relationship you have with your sister, but if it were the other way around, I’d send you over and see how long it takes for her to get mad.” Dexter turned his head, eyes lagging on Deb’s face before locking onto David’s, seeing a mischievous grin there. That’s a new one. “And I’m gonna guess you didn’t tell her you were bringing a friend, since you don’t tell anyone anything.”

He’s getting better at reading me. Not sure if that’s a good thing. “If you want to. But she might hit you.”

“So would Claire.”

“Mm.” Dexter rolled the idea around on his tongue, “so what’s your plan?”

“I went to school with these twins that would sneak into each other’s classes sometimes.” David pulled him sideways by his arm, keeping them out of view from their target. “They’d swap clothes, respond to each other’s names, and just tried to act like each other until someone noticed.”

“How long did it usually take?”

“Well their friends figured it out in the first few minutes, but teachers usually didn’t know about it ‘til the next day.”

Most people had been focused on how similar the two appeared to be, which while unnervingly true, was not the whole story; disregarding the obvious differences in how they acted, David also seemed to keep more indoors, and his face was clean shaven. His hair was roughly the same length, but it had been carefully tamed and swept back from his face—much unlike Dexter’s fresh-from-the-shower tousled look. That wasn’t even mentioning the sideburns…

“At the very least it’ll throw her off for a second, right? C’mon, you’re making me meet your family, the least you could do is have a little fun.”

At least he wasn’t wearing a dress shirt anymore, but this wasn’t Dexter’s usual style either. “We don’t really match.”

“What do you mean? You match me more than my own brother does.”

“You said the twins went to school in each-other’s clothes. I don’t wear those shirts.”

“We’re not going for perfect here, Dexter.”

“I know.” Jokes were only funny if the target of it thought it was funny—many, many rounds of trial and error had taught Dexter the difference between a lighthearted prank and bullying, at least loosely. “It could just… be closer.”

“It really couldn’t. And I’m not gonna change clothes to prove it.”

“Your hair is different, too.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what the Hell you do every morning because it sure doesn’t have anything to do with a comb.”

Deb would get a kick out of it, I think. “Can I try?”

David held his hands out to the side, palms up in anatomical position with an exasperated look on his face. Dexter got to work with dithering fingers, carefully reaching for the third button on his shirt and undoing it with a delicacy that assured he wouldn’t have to physically touch his shadow, only the shirt.

“And just—put your fingers in your hair and lift. Just loosen what you have, it doesn’t have to be perfect.”

David, once again slightly red in the face, did as instructed, looking as if he regretted making the ‘twins’ suggestion in the first place. The strands of hair loosened, falling softly back to the scalp with much more volume. That’ll do.

“...it’s better.”

“Anything else? Want me to go get a spray tan, find some hot rollers?”

“Just don’t call her Debra, I don’t do that very often.”

“Deb it is.”

“You’re sure about this? She—”

“I already messed up my hair, I’m not backing down now.” The peakish man was already walking over.

Dexter waited for him to blow it immediately, go in for an uncharacteristically warm hug of greeting, but it never came. He adjusted in his spot by a plant as David sat down with an air of nonchalance, opening up a menu and at least miming to read it.

Already Deb’s face had curled up to something unpleasant, like she smelled something foul and could only recoil a few inches. Her eyes wandered up and down her ‘brother’, saying nothing in response to whatever he was yammering about. It was obvious that she could tell there was something wrong, most likely many somethings,but it was nobody’s first thought to assume a duplicate had just sat at their table.

David held her gaze quietly for a few seconds, probably prompting with a question, ‘why are you staring at me’ or ‘what are you going to order’ being the most likely candidates, but the man was facing away. Deb, however, was on full display, open mouth suddenly forming a set of words that Dexter could only guess at. Thankfully, he had known Debra her entire life, and as such could make an educated guess as to what her exaggerated words had been based on experience and context clues: ‘did you get bit by a fucking vampire?’

David was right, this is entertaining. Dexter bared his teeth without thought, a sense of amusement wrenching his lips apart. David began using his hands a bit, most likely objecting to the question or asking why she said it, when Deb launched the next one: ‘are you sick or something?’

Briefly, he tried slotting himself into Deb’s position. Sitting, waiting for her to arrive only for an imperfect replica to pull up across from him, covered in slight differences that were impossible to account for between now and the last time he had seen her. It would be a mix of confusion and annoyance—and worry, if he could fathom such a thing. Clearly something had to have happened, for her to look so different, and people usually didn’t lighten a shade or two out of the blue due to being healthy.

Oh, she’ll laugh at this, I’m sure.

Now she was reaching across the table with a napkin, dampened with spit, trying to wipe off whatever makeup her ‘brother’ had on to bring him up a tone, and David was trying to grab and fight her off, so it was probably time to reveal the scheme.

He swam through the thick throngs of people, a slow-moving shark cutting through the crowded reef towards his target. Closer, now, he could hear her demands for an explanation, his giggling protests to let go of him, and his feet rooted to the spot almost mid-step, the tide still rushing around his ankles. Is that what it sounds like from the outside? It sounds so… normal. Plain. Real.

“What the fuck is that?!” An arm jutted out, palm up and spread, heralding Dexter from his spot halfway across the floor. The grip on his legs loosened, and he coasted the rest of the way to the table, teeth flashing in a smile that Deb sometimes—oftentimes—called ‘dorky’.

“Woah, who’s this guy? He looks just like me!” Dexter looked at David in mock shock, his shadow stopping mid-giggle by biting his tongue with a remaining grin.

“Cut the shit, brother, who is this?” Deb held up her hand for emphasis, still locked like iron around David’s wrist like he might run away if she didn’t.

“I have no idea, I’ve never seen this man—I guess, maybe in the mirror.”

“Ok-ok-ok, Dexter, drop it—” The sideways tilt to David’s head suggested the grip was becoming unbearable.

“See? He knows who you are, so who the fuck is he?” Deb tossed the hand with all the effort of someone spitting out something bitter, disgusted.

“David, friend of mine.” His friend was already getting out of his chair, scooting to the one diagonal from his sister instead of across. Dexter took his seat.

“Friend of yours, since when the fuck do you have friends?”

“I have friends! You’ve met them!”

“Work friends, yeah. You don’t have normal friends, dipshit.” The careful study of David resumed. “I guess he’s not normal, though, so you still don’t.”

“Hey, give him a chance, you just met him.” Dexter nudged the man next to him, subtly glancing at the held-tight wrist for signs of redness. “I double booked you both, I figured he could come along.”

“Double-booked is a strong way to put it,” now David’s menu-perusal was definitely real. “He asked if I wanted to get a bite and then got your text two seconds later. I told him we could re-book, but he got that blank look on his face and told me they had good margs—if I wanted one.”

Across the table, the hard and angry furrowed brow visually—albeit not biologically—related to his own smoothed over to confusion. “Weren’t you just at work?”

In a small lull as the music ticked over to a new song, Dexter heard the tell-tale wet click of lips pulling back in a display of humor. “He was. Yep, brought me to work with him.”

“Work—Jesus, Dex, how long have you been hiding this guy from me?”

“Three days.” A plain truth, an easy answer. Wednesday night, and they’d met that Monday night. Technically it had been Tuesday morning, since it was after one—“Or two, I guess.”

His sister widened her eyes, brow lifting as she lowered her chin, jaw slack in a well-worn expression of ‘incredulity’. She used it on him often. “You brought him to work after two days.” It was a statement, not a question.

“He did indeed.” Dexter glanced to his right to catch David smiling at him, a teasing quality to his face. “Met him Monday night and I’ve already seen his apartment, had lunch, spent hours at work, met all his coworkers, and now I’m meeting his family! After this, we were thinking about getting matching tattoos—y’know, just cause it’s the natural next step.”

Well, he almost got it all right. “Tattoos?”

“What, you’re not afraid of needles, are you?”

“No.” Far from it. Fingers dragged across one of David’s eyebrows, holding an invisible cigarette and—oh. It was a joke. I’ve irked him, I think I can pick up on that one by now. “What… what were you thinking? Two puzzle pieces, something like that?”

“God, okay, both of you stop talking.” His sister was rubbing her temples, bangs hiding her eyes a bit as she looked down at the table. “Sounds like a fuckin’ echo.”

“How do you think I feel?” Once again, David was seamlessly stepping into the side of the opposition, ingraining and endearing himself with whoever happened to be talking to them. “I show up here on vacation and here’s this guy with my face, my voice. And we already discussed it, it’s my face, I’m the older one.”

“David’s from L.A., in case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t, but okay.” Deb looked back down at the menu, sighing, some unseen tension sloughing off her shoulders. “At least he’s not a surprise brother. I don’t think I could deal with two of you.”

“Don’t worry, I have my own little sister to terrorize. She’s usually the one doing the terrorizing, though.”

Things were simmering down. Dexter leaned to read Deb’s menu—David was a surprise guest, and as such only two menus had been brought over—and scanned the upside-down meals without worry of another argument.

Deb pushed the laminated paper towards him, letting him spin it around and examine it rightside up. “So how did you and Mr. L.A. meet?”

Time marches invariably onwards, set at the same steady pace at all times, making exception only on leap years when the world had enough overdue time to need an extra day to get its affairs in order. This had been a leap year, negating the rule of century years being excluded by being divisible by four hundred. The days were a delicate dance, one well-rehearse and tested by humans for millennia, adhered to with a kind of strictness that Dexter could appreciate. As surely as the sun would rise, people would count it.

And with rising came setting, shadows lengthening and lightening and slowly growing fuzzy around the edges as the celestial light became reflected rather than projected, and the nearest visible star was lightyears away. Artificial lights became necessary, from the very first fires to today’s neon-gas lights, currently glinting pink and orange off of David’s glass as he spoke over the rim. His attention had wandered, but Dexter managed to grasp that the man was telling the Morgans the tale of his little sister’s lime-green hearse, and the ticket she had just gotten for speeding. He approached the zenith of the story, remarking about it being impossible to speed in L.A. traffic and how he was amazed she’d found a way to do it rather than being upset with her, and Deb exhaled through her nose in a show of amusement. Dexter mirrored it.

Talking with David was easy, and talking with Deb was even easier, at least most of the time. Sitting with them had been an altogether laid-back experience. He’d spent a majority of the dinner as an awkward mediator as they bounced off each other; Deb wanted to know all there was to know about someone Dexter had voluntarily referred to as his friend, and David was happy to play along for whatever reasons he may have had.

Being a wolf in sheep’s wool made it easy to spot other members of the pack. Dexter knew the specific shades of black to look for on someone’s mind—not their heart, since most of the time, just like him, they didn’t have one—and could pick them out with a low rate of failure. Recognition of self through the other was a valuable piece of his toolset, and right now it was having trouble with the man sitting next to him.

It wasn’t the normal kind of monstrous he usually picked up on. This man had never killed anyone—except Oliver Beaumont, of course—and didn’t seem inclined to it. Most people could end a life if they were mad enough, but that was based on pure emotion—spur-of-the-moment scorn and hurt replacing any prior planning. It was a reality most people didn’t want to face, but true all the same. The majority of the population had just never been pushed to that point.

Nevertheless, his Dark Passenger kept looking him over, sniffing him like a detection dog looking for something explosive within him, primed to go off at any minute. Something in David was raising his hackles, but no amount of staring at the side of his head brought him an answer.

If my Passenger is a wolf, maybe his is… a coyote or something. A jackal.

He could be wrong. He never was about these things, but he hadn’t picked up on anything until just after the bill was paid and David mentioned that he, too, had been the subject of bullying in school, and something dark clouded his normally friendly eyes. Tallying up their time together, Dexter figured they’d spent over ten waking hours together, interacting and speaking in close proximity, topics ranging from a murder to the aftermath of other murders to the funeral the next week, and not a single flag had gone up.

What had changed now? Why was it different at dinner?

“—like Dex is up past his bedtime.” His sister was smiling at him now, clueing him in to the fact he’d probably been being observed for a short while without his realizing it.

He looks like me, of course I’m assuming he has a Passenger. At these things, it was best to play along—Deb would usually use Dexter’s schedule or behaviour as an excuse to leave events without having to take the blame herself, so she was most likely tired, run ragged at the academy and having used the remaining allotment of her daily energy systematically prying open a stranger like the seafood they had eaten. Dexter tossed out a yawn, covering his mouth politely.

David did the same, slowly rising off his chair. “You yawned me, you bastard.”

“Yawned you?” I was right about the buttons, the shirt looks better on him with more done.

“You yawned and it made me yawn.” From David’s wallet came a decent tip, well worth the careful-tending required to earn it. Dexter moved without thinking and set his empty glass onto the corner of the bills. “It’s an empathy thing. Means I’m not a sociopath, at least. Win for you two, huh?”

Deb nodded with a sort of pity smile—seeing David engage with others at length had been more eye-opening still, observing the pitfalls in his friend-to-all attitude. The surface was easy, and teasing Dexter was easy for him, but his own jokes sometimes fell flat, and he’d pinch his lips together to stop himself from saying anything else off-putting.

Dexter had at least learned the importance of not telling a stranger that you’re ‘not a psychopath’ and ‘weren’t going to hurt them’ unless the situation called for it. It went hand-in-hand with abstaining from calling yourself humble, cool, honest, or ‘seriously super nice’. His mouth turned up at the thought; least I’ve got that on him.

“Thanks for coming out, David.” He pulled the man sideways away from the table, the small group beginning towards the parking lot. “I’m sure Deb appreciated the interrogation practice.”

David let out a breathy chuckle as Deb retaliated with a new bruise to his arm, “happy to be of service.”

“You should come back to Miami sometime.” The strange trio stopped briefly under an orange-tinted streetlamp at the outset of the lot, bulb buzzing like a dozen grasshoppers chittering leg against abdomen. “I think you’re the first friend of his he’s made voluntarily.”

Well, it wasn’t that voluntary. “No need to think so far ahead, he’s still stuck here til Sunday.”

“I’ll think about it.” The old weariness was showing back on David’s youthful face, a deep-set exhaustion that came from too much socialization—or too much stress, the way Dexter had seen it before. That man wanted the conversation to be over, to go home and collapse on his rented bed with a Hampton-standard threadcount and fall asleep before his eyes finished closing. Hopefully he’d get some good sleep. Guilt usually kept people up and restless, and he didn’t quite want David becoming a shambling corpse like that of the night they met.

“Don’t be a stranger; you’ve got my number.” He did his best to look friendly to this tired soul, looking into his hazel eyes that could sometimes look green if the light hit them just right but right now looked black as the night sky itself. For a moment he remembered the stars as they were two nights ago—three?—with even more chewed off of the moon as it made its way to a blank sky. He remembered a man, blubbering, covered in blood, endlessly thanking him as he latched on, clutched, squeezed Dexter like holding on to this perfect stranger was the last thing between him and bleeding out on the bedroom floor.

Dexter held out a hand. He likes contact. It did not shock him when David took it, using both hands to cup his like older folks had a tendency to do. He did not feel surprised when David gave the hand a squeeze and a terse extra shake, emphasizing his thanks at having come along. It was expected when he turned to Deb, shaking her hand as well, speaking in defined earnest that he was glad to have met her, and wishing her well with the police academy. The cherry on top was a gentle pat to David’s shoulder as he turned away, and the trio became a duo once more, watching the strange little man move off towards his rental.

The routine was followed as always; Dexter would walk Deb to her car, they’d start talking again just before they got to it, and they’d spend five-to-ten or so minutes catching up on something they forgot to mention at dinner, with a dozen ‘one more thing’s sprinkled in until they gave each other friendly tap and walked away. Sometimes if it had been a while—or would be a while—they would exchange a hug, Deb would tell him to respond to her messages faster, and that would be it.

About twenty feet from Deb’s car, she leaned on him. “So what the fuck was that?”

“David Fisher.”

He felt her slightly-uneven probably-aching gait pitch sideways and gently bump into him, either unintentional as a result of not enough sleep or a pebble in her path or on purpose for some unknown conversational misstep.

“What’d you think of him?”

“What’d I think—sounds like you just brought home a date and want my blessing—”

“Course not, no—“

“Good.” Deb hugged herself, braced against the night-air. “Cause you bringing home a guy would be weird enough, even without the fact—”

“Why would me bringing home a guy be weird?”

“’Cause you’re not gay.”

Bold statement. “I could be, you don’t know.”

“I do know, Dex, please. I would’ve noticed by now.”

You haven’t noticed a lot bigger things about me. “But I could be.”

“Are you?”

The answer came easily, “no.” None of the many sex and gender combinations really appealed to him as such, and therefore he couldn’t be gay; he was indifferent no matter the options. He’d really only ever been with women, though, so it wasn’t hard to see where Deb got the impression that Dexter Morgan was decidedly heterosexual.

“Yeah.” Deb stopped at the trunk of her slightly-older-than-average sedan, leaning on it. “So you finding a guy to bring home would be weird enough—”

“Would you care if I was?”

His sister’s mouth hung open, mid-sentence and slightly annoyed. The topic had rarely come up beyond some gossip at school she had shared with him long ago, during her teen years on the rare occasion she deigned to speak with him. She’d seemed affably neutral on the subject.

“Gay, I mean.”­

“No, I wouldn’t give a shit. Do whatever, just stop fucking interrupting me.”

It was nice to hear, however cut with irritation. A little reassurance that Deb would love him no matter what—or at least almost no matter what. As long as he kept the big one a secret, she would keep on loving him until they were both grey and wrinkled, or more realistically, until Dexter was strapped down to Old Sparky with a black hood over his face and a sponge in his hair. Time to ride the lightning, you sick motherfucker.

“I’m saying it would be double weird since he looks exactly fuckin’ like you.”

“Not exactly.” He’s pale, clean shaven, a little more wiry, keeps his hair—

“Christ, Dex, he’s got the same moles you do.”

So she had noticed that too—which made sense, since the only person that knew him better than himself was Deb. Has David noticed yet?

Her voice lost the annoyance, now full of mirth and slipping through a set of grinning teeth. “It’s messed up.”

“I’ve been trying not to think about it.”

“I can tell.” They’d better finish the discussion soon, or else Deb would light a cigarette and they’d both be out til she finished it. “How in the shit did you find you but gay? And a vampire?”

“Oh, so I’m obviously not gay, but he obviously is gay?”

Sometimes people wouldn’t answer your question, just fixing you with a slight glare and a smirk to let you know you were supposed to read their mind and figure it out yourself.

Which meant Dexter had to answer her questionfirst. “We told you how. He got too tipsy—”

“Since when do you let anyone in your apartment—fuck in your apartment, in your bed?”

“We did not do that.” That remark earned him a soft shoulder punch, and he smiled through it; “what rule says I can’t just be a good Samaritan sometimes?”

“None, just… weird.”

Time was easy to pass with Deb. She felt like his own limb sometimes, a part of him that he kept forgetting where he put it down, a piece he missed when she was gone. Other times he couldn’t wait to be rid of her, up to his eyebrows in minor annoyances that usually came at the end of a long day stuck in a car together. Their parents would decide on shuttling the family two-and-change hours to Fort Myers to get fake-smile pictures under the big fig tree at the Edison and Ford museum, all of them standing by the Edison statue smelling like sweat and stale upholstery and nothing very much at all like figs.

Tonight, he just wanted her to get inside before she got too cold. Even in the humidity, Miami got a snap of cold when the sun went down.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“What was the question?”

“I asked what you thought about him.”

“What do I think about him.” Dexter nodded needlessly at her repetition. “I dunno. He’s alright. Surprisingly normal, for someone you managed to catch. And for being an undertaker.”

The Killer and the Undertaker. What a pair we are. “Normal?”

“Yeah. Little awkward, but if that stopped me from hanging out with someone, I’d never call.”

“You didn’t think there was anything off about him?”

“Off?”

Gossip in the Morgan family usually revolved around death and murder, as was befitting a police-aligned patriarch, with the occasional “normal” gossip around the neighbourhood that Mom liked to pretend she didn’t participate in. As such, Deb had long since learned about Dexter’s certain gift when it came to sniffing out bad actors—even in her own personal life, regardless of if she wanted to believe him or not. In a few year’s time, he was sure she’d be using him like a trained bloodhound, taking a quick whiff of a suspect before she took it to LaGuerta.

“I didn’t notice anything.”

Hopefully, all of that meant she would take him seriously. “I thought there was something… I dunno. A little weird, something… I don’t know.”

“You got a bad feeling about him?” She’s hearing me out. Good.

“Not quite, just… feels like there’s something a little wrong with him.”

“Well, yeah, he’s hanging out with you on purpose.”

“Deb,” the word came as a slight warning, like a parent catching their child playing soccer indoors.

“Fine, yeah, he’s a little off. But so is everyone.”

“He’s—”

“He’s just a weirdo, Dex. Stop trying to sabotage yourself. You made a friend and no one had to pull any teeth.”

Before he could offer another rebuttal, Debra leaned off the trunk and made her way to the driver’s side. I guess that’s that.

“I’m serious, though, if he comes back to Miami, let me know. Maybe I can help you two dickheads pull off the twin thing on Matthews or something—or Camilla, even. If you do it on me again, though, I’m hitting both of you.”

She really must’ve meant it, then.

Dexter backed away from the car, extending his hand in a wave as the engine hummed to life and drove out, away, destined for sleep and an early morning. He waited until he couldn’t see it anymore, and then turned to find his own.

The thought kept swirling around his head, long after he’d unbuttoned his shirt, slipping from his comfortable-but-not-sleepwear Chinos into some loose-fitting pajama pants. Deb’s statement on the matter, he’s just a weirdo stop sabotaging yourself, echoed from ear to ear as he brushed his teeth, washed his face, and climbed under the thin covers to stare at his ceiling.

It wasn’t bad advice; David would soon again be the problem of Los Angeles, complete with whatever weirdness he might be hiding under the surface, not a threat to anyone in polite society. Why ruin the good thing he had going based on one strange hunch?

If Dexter were to be honest with himself, this could be one of the rare moments where he found himself able to sense someone else’s distress—it would explain a lot, really. People backed into a corner did strange things—sometimes dangerous things, things that might make his ears begin to burn with faint recognition of something dark in someone. It might also give reason to the somewhat sudden onset; David had been a picture of normalcy as soon as he’d been dropped off at the hotel, but running the gauntlet with police officers and lab geeks had to have taken it out of him—even humans sometimes wore a mask, and Dexter knew just how heavy it could get. Maybe he had felt a little more relaxed around family--

Maybe that was what caused all of this.

I introduced him to Deb.

Any remaining strength to stay awake fizzled into the dark air, a deep-set and unnamed muscle finally relaxing in his stomach.

David Fisher was a normal man. Maybe he had something slightly weird about him, but Deb was right; so did most normal people. Plenty of preachers went home to be whipped by their wives, many doctors had gambling problems—especially where David lived—that anyone else would be too poor for, everyone knew that cops were huge alcoholics.

The forensic blood spatter analyst cuts people up into little pieces and uses them to feed the bluefish and crappie. How else would he catch such big marlin? I tell you what, that crazy bastard cooked up one Hell of a fish fry. The corners of his mouth turned up, unbidden.

It became harder and harder to will his eyes open. He finally surrendered, rolling lazily onto his side to let sleep take him.

Deb likes him.

The sound of the curtains became fainter, the world slowly ebbing away in the tide of Bal Harbour.

I think that’s nice.

Notes:

we got like 2-3 more chapters to go before im gonna do a timeskip. i mentioned it on my tumblr but dunno if i mentioned it here. and the timeskip chapter shall be posted on christmas come hell or high water so expect 2-3 more chapters in the next 10 days

Notes:

In case you missed it: in Chapter 1 [Is It Your First Time Here in the City?], David meets Oliver at Club Havana, and Dexter wonders if Officer Clark still goes there. That is an Original Sin reference -- Clark Sanders is a cop on the force that Dexter runs into outside a gay bar, Club Havana, while on a hunt. Clark talks to him the next day about it, asking him to keep it secret, which he does, and they continue being friends. I like their friendship and wanted to include a reference, what can I say.