Chapter Text
They didn’t go hunting today. Instead, Harry held a red ballpoint pen, circling words on a photocopied page titled the DSM-III. The kitchen table had been completely cleared of everything else, creating a stark contrast against the dark brown wood.
Dexter looked down at the printed words. Pervasive lack of responsiveness. Peculiar interests, Bizarre responses.
“I don’t have this, dad,” he said in a flat tone, a bit offended.
“No, but you have something worse,” Harry said. He didn’t say it to be mean: it was just a fact. “But you’re smart, you already perform to make Deb happy. Now you just have to mimic the right things for the specialist. We aren’t going to make up new traits, Dex. That’s how people get caught, we are going to use things you already do.”
Harry tapped the pen on the first bullet point.
“You don’t like it when people touch you. When Doris tries to hug you, you stiffen up like a board. She’s worried about you, Dex. So from now on, it’s a sensory integration dysfunction. Got it?”
Dexter nodded, looking at his worried but concentrated expression. “Your eyes,” Harry continued. “When people talk to you, look at their mouth, nose, or at a wall. When asked why, say it’s so you can concentrate on their words.”
His eyes trailed to Harry’s left cheekbone. Harry let out a long, weary breath. “Good. Just like that”.
Dexter watched the red pen as it tip-tapped against the paper. He didn’t feel broken. He just didn’t see the point in performing sadness for a dead corgi he put there. “What do I tell them about the urges?”
Harry stopped tapping the pen and leaned back, the wooden chair legs scraping against the linoleum. “Nothing, you tell them you need routines—very important. You tell them you like biology. You like the patterns. And Dex, if they ask any empathy-related questions, always answer the exact opposite of what you would do.”
Dexter turned his palms over, inspecting his own hands. He could do that. He already viewed the world as a series of patterns and puzzles anyway.
“What about Deb?”, he asked cautiously.
“Deb loves you. She’ll believe it because she wants an explanation for why her brother is different,” Harry said, closing the folder. “And once it’s on paper, Dex, it’s a shield. No one questions a diagnosis from a state doctor. Not your mother, not your teachers. Not ever again.”
“This is going to work. It will explain why you don’t make friends or why you don’t react like others do,” Harry said, his tone heavy but filled with hope as the yellow overhead lights cast downwards shadows, deepening the lines on his face.
Dexter mused out loud: “An under-responsiveness means a lack of reaction, right? Can I do that instead of an exaggerated one?”
That immediately earned him a silent nod of approval.
“Exactly,” Harry said, placing the pages into a folder and sliding it across the table until it rested right in front of Dex’s hands. “Study it tonight. Memorize the bullet points. Internalize it so that it sounds natural when we go to speak with the specialist on Tuesday.”
His gaze locked onto the manila folder, slightly frayed on the edges. This wasn’t dodging an ASPD evaluation to placate Doris: it was about rewriting the narrative entirely.
Dexter didn’t realize it then, sitting in the dim light of the kitchen. He thought Harry was just teaching him another way to hide. He didn’t realize that at fourteen years of age, he was stepping into a gilded cage he would never be able to leave behind.