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There's banging on his apartment door. Dexter’s pulse shoots up even though on some level he knows it can’t be that bad; if it was that bad they would be breaking in silently, not banging to alert him of their presence.
So, who? Not Jordan & Friends. Not Lumen, she would have called first. Not Astor either; she would be complaining as she banged, impatient, screeching Dexter open up!!
It takes him that long to think maybe it’s the police, that knock he’d always known was on the horizon somewhere…
But as he's still trying to wrap his mind around the thought that maybe it's all over, the visitor speaks, and it turns out it’s not the police either.
Well, it is. Sort of. “Helloo-ooooo,” the voice calls, almost singsong. “Anybody hooo-ooome? It’s your sis….ter….”
He yanks the door open. “Jesus, Deb, you scared me. What happened to your key?”
“Didn’t want to just walk in on you in case you had company.” She peeks over his shoulder. “Lou Ann – whatever your name is? You in here?”
Dexter leans against the door frame. “Deb… Lumen’s not here. And I told you, she’s not my girlfriend.”
“Yeah and I told you: bullshit.” Deb holds up a heavy paper bag, smiling. “I brought beer.” When he doesn’t react, she presses: “For you. To drink, while you talk to me. Which you haven’t been doing lately. I mean,” she laughs awkwardly, “Even more than usual.”
“Ah.” Time to be the good big brother. If he turns her away now it would look bad. (Especially since she still kind of lives here.) “Sure. Come in.” He can feel himself slipping into his persona like a favorite T-shirt – it’s comfortable, weightless, almost as good as not wearing anything at all. Almost.
“So,” he says as he opens beers, “What do I need to talk about?”
“First of all don’t sound so annoyed,” she orders, and he can hear laughter in her voice. “If you can tell that douchebag you can tell me.” She gestures with her bottle, and Dexter notices then that he’s left a bunch of Jordan Chase stuff lying around on his table, including his pamphlets and a map.
It’s a very good thing she knows he’s been seeing Jordan. Otherwise those papers would be difficult to explain. Perhaps honesty is the best policy after all.
“Hey, cut Jordan a break,” Dexter shoots back mildly. Reflexively. It’s second-nature for him not to talk about people behind their backs; he’s known since the beginning that he’s not a man who can afford to have enemies. After a moment, though, he rethinks. He already has this enemy. No point pretending otherwise. “Okay, maybe he is a douchebag,” he allows, “But I still think he can… help me.” He manages to keep the smile off his face, but he can’t resist flirting with the truth for just a little bit longer. “I still think that seeing him…” (die) “… can make it better.”
“Better.” Suddenly the fun is gone from Deb’s voice and she stares down, cocks her head, speaks into her lap. “Dex, I know what he says. Masuka listens to that shit all the time. I even… I even took a listen myself, after…” She almost chokes on it. “After Lundy. And I have to tell you…”
“What?”
She shakes her head. “It’s bullshit,” she says, raising her head to look at him. “You can’t just… take stuff. When shit happens… it’s shit, and nothing can change that. Nothing he can tell you can help bring Rita back.”
He nods. He’d forgotten about Lundy. (And Rita). In the heat of the hunt he could have forgotten about anything. “You lost someone too,” he muses.
“No shit.” Deb lets out a short laugh.
“Deb, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” She finishes her drink. “Get me another beer, will you?”
He can tell by the way her eyes dart around that she’s plotting something. He analyzes it quickly: ulterior motive for requesting a beer? Ah: she’s probably about to cry, and she wants a second to wipe her face and get it together again without him noticing. “Sure,” he says, and gets up to go to the fridge. He takes his sweet time rummaging around, giving her all the time she might need, but when he stands up again, beer in hand, he jumps because she is standing right there.
Right about the ulterior motive, wrong about what exactly she has in mind. “Dex,” she whispers, and holds out her arms.
He doesn’t step in. “Uh.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, you don’t do hugs,” she anticipates, and hugs him anyway. “Too fucking bad.”
We’ll see. He takes one more sip of his beer, then puts it down and folds his arms around her with confidence. Lumen has assured him, on those few occasions she’s turned panicky or weepy for some reason, that he gives good hugs.
“I’m sorry, Deb,” he murmurs, rubbing her back. “I wish there was something I could do.”
He says it without thinking, one of those pleasantries he’s learned to include in his speech. But once he says it, he realizes he does wish that – more than anything. He wishes it so hard he squeezes her.
“Ow. Easy,” she complains.
He lets go. He’s a little restless, a little annoyed. He feels… cheated. He's feeling a little down and he wants to be hugged and comforted, and Deb thinks she's doing it, but the person she's hugging and comforting is not really him.
He knows that in order for him to get what he wants from Deb now, he'd have to tell her who is. And then he could be at ease with her, fully at ease, and she could say his name and actually mean it. He could drop all those layers of pretense, finally, after all these years...
The drive to get psychologically naked with Deb is overpowering. He turns away. He knows he has to resist it, knows it can never happen and that she wouldn't even believe him if he tried, but still, controlling the urge is hard. Really, at this moment it feels as powerful as the other drive, which is a terrifying prospect. What if it persists? What if it gets worse? As if the Dark Passenger wasn’t enough – now he’s got to cope with a Needy Passenger too?
“Hey, jerkoff, I didn’t say I don’t want a hug,” Deb says to his back. “I do. Just not a chiropractic adventure, okay?”
“Sure, sure, sorry. I guess I just don’t know my own strength anymore; Jordan’s been having me go to the gym,” he tosses off with the ease of long practice. He faces her and gestures her in. “Here. Do-over.”
“The gym?” she says into his chest, diving back in to hug him again. “What a dumbass. I tried gymratting too. It doesn’t work.”
“What does?” he muses into her hair. Failing all else, they still do have this in common. As dismal as it is, they can be open, they can connect – about this. He tells himself it will have to do.
“Nothing. Lundy’s gone.”
“Yes. So is Rita.” But it's unbearable to be hugged under false pretenses now of all times. It’s not grief that’s bothering him, it’s guilt, and he needs to show Deb at least that much of himself. “She is dead and it’s my fault.”
“No. Dex, you can’t think that way,” she orders. “Don’t.”
He laughs softly. “You sound like Jordan.”
“Sorry. You’re right.” She takes a deep breath. “That is shit.”
“And nothing can change it,” he echoes.
Now it’s her turn to squeeze. “Love you anyway.”
He nods. “Love you, too,” he answers, and wonders how to know if he means it or not.
**********************************************
Some Weeks Later.
“Okay, so…” Deb sits on the desk, crossing her arms and trying to look nonchalant. “Jordan Chase is missing and we have what looks like a crime scene. So where are we?” The briefing room is packed, but almost nobody is looking at her. They’re all stealing glances at the Barrel Girls, who remain arrayed up on the wall as if they’re still waiting for justice.
“Looked like a crime scene,” Masuka corrects. “You called in on the basis of blood and torture implements, but when we got there there was almost no blood left. Bleach yes, blood no. Right, Dex?”
“Hmm?” Dexter speaks up mildly. “Oh. Yeah. Except for those straps on the table everything was clean. And those we don’t know about – we don’t even know if it’s Jordan’s blood, or another girl’s. We can't tell anything, really.”
Quinn puts his two cents in too, with a lot more violence. “Yeah, well what did you want Deb to do? Stick around and investigate further – on her own? In some basement with bloody knives and pokers hanging on the walls and that guy on the loose?” He gestures to the wall behind him, to the pictures. This time people make an effort not to look.
“Quinn, cool it,” Deb says, as steadily as she can. “It’s true, I should have… investigated.” She has a hard time choking out the word. “But I… I couldn’t.”
So Quinn takes it upon himself to break up the meeting. “All right, enough,” he snaps, stepping between her and the others. “That’s all we got for now. As soon as we have any leads on the Jordan Chase thing we come back here. Go. Scram.”
When they’re all gone Deb runs her hands over her face. “Jesus, Quinn.”
“I’m sorry. But they have no right to be giving you shit for this.”
“No, they’re right. I should’ve… I…”
She sounds like she's almost in tears, and Quinn folds her into his arms right there in the office. “Hey, Debra, it’s okay. We’re going to get this guy, I promise. Okay? I promise.”
“No!” She pulls back. “Quinn, it’s… fuck, it’s not…” At last she shakes her head, with a helpless huff of what is almost laughter. “It’s not what you think, okay? I’m okay. It’s not that.”
Before they can get any further there’s a knock at the door. It’s Dexter. “Quinn, can I talk to her a minute?” he asks, bland and harmless as ever. “I want to go over it with her one more time, make sure Masuka and I didn’t miss anything.”
“Yeah, sure, sure,” she agrees. She nods at Quinn to get out, and he does. Though he flashes Dexter a weird look on his way past.
***************************************
Don’t do it, Dex. Don’t do it, Harry says.
She needs me, Dexter argues. He can see it. As one who keeps secrets on a daily basis, he can see the secret struggling inside her, desperate to escape.
He can’t let it. The minute Deb’s vigilante theory acquires some hard proof, then Bonnie and Clyde are serial killers and the department will have to pursue them. Quite aside from the fact that Deb’s sterling reputation for integrity will be ruined for good.
Now, you know you don’t care about that, Harry chides gently. Don’t deceive yourself, Dexter. You can’t afford it.
He shoulders Harry out of the way and sits on a desk opposite Deb’s.
“So,” he says, doing a passable impression of nonchalance. “Do you think the blood on those straps was Jordan's?”
“Shit, I don't know.” Debra runs a hand over her hair, shakes her head and tries again not to sound desperate. “Fucked if I know.” Clearly it takes her all of her courage to meet his eyes.
“Because, if it's not Jordan's blood... if the tests I'm doing aren't conclusive... then nobody will ever know what happened down in that basement.”
He waits a moment and sees Deb's eyes go vacant, wistful. “Yeah, well let's cross our fingers,” she says. Then, in a horrified fluster, corrects herself: “I mean, cross em that we do figure it out. You know.”
He can only stare at her.
She's not going to get it, Dex, Harry says from behind him somewhere. It's just not in her nature.
Yeah and look how well you had MY nature pegged, Dexter growls back, silently. You never know until you try.
Anyway, it's not like he's going to tell her everything. He knows perfectly well she can't accept him all the way. But at least she can know he fudged a blood test. This one, maybe. Or Quinn's. Or both. At least then they can bond over the tingly experience of substituting in their own sense of justice instead of playing by the book. Just this once.
She'll be more upset if you tell her, son . Harry is still gentle, still not accusing, but Dexter understands the subtext. Is he being selfish? (Does it matter?) If she can't handle sharing this little corner of herself and he forces her to do it, just because he feels like bonding today...
He certainly doesn't appreciate it when people try to do that to him. He's gone his whole life without a real heart-to-heart with Debra, and he'll just have to suck it up and go this day too.
“I won't tell anyone,” he says, with a smile that's simultaneously dumb and conspiratorial. It's the look he imagines a lot of criminals are wearing just before they get caught. “You know – that you were rooting for the test to be inconclusive.”
Deb relaxes once he's said that. “Oh – yeah. Because, you know, it's not like I support... butchering people... even when they fucking definitely deserve it.”
“Mmm.” His smile is turning genuine now – cynical and genuine. Poor Deb, itching to unburden herself and yet not quite daring. Now that, he can relate to. “The tests don't look good so far,” he says with a big sigh. “It doesn't look like we're going to be able to tell anything.”
She's trying not to show how welcome that news is. “Okay. Let me know if the final report says different.”
“It won't. If your vigilantes exist, Deb, they got away with it.”
“You don't sound too broken up,” she notices with one of those rare flashes of intuition that always take Dexter by surprise. Though perhaps they shouldn't; she is Harry's daughter after all. Everything Dexter killed himself to absorb over the years is already in her blood.
“I'm not,” he says, and it's a step in the right direction. He looks both ways and when he sees the room is abandoned, adds quietly: “You know those people who deserve to die?” He nods at the Barrel Girls' pictures. “Jordan Chase was one of those people. He really was.”
For a moment they lock eyes, both squirming with the need to come clean, and it's so close to a moment of true connection that Dexter, at least, feels almost satisfied. It's enough, for now, and he manages not to push further. Instead he laughs and breaks their stare, and hauls his facade back into place. “Don't tell anybody I said that,” he adds.
“Yeah – wasn't he supposed to be your therapist or something?” Deb tries to imitate his manner, but her smile still looks forced. He'll have to help her practice somehow. A reliable smile is very important for people who keeps secrets.
Dex, she is still not like you. Don't make that mistake-
He closes his ears to Harry and enjoys what he has. “I fired him. You were right – it's all shit. Was, ” he corrects, then shrugs and asks Deb to lunch. And not, for a change, because he has to.
**************************************
The End.