They wend their way through the crowd, stunned yet still mobile. They have to keep moving forward. He's not even sure where they're going, but they return to the crowded dancefloor and he leads the haphazard way through the shifting waves of partygoers. Her hand rests on his arm like a butterfly, impossibly light and likely to fly at any moment, but he also somehow knows that for her, it's a high tension steel cable lifeline, tying her to him and to this reality they inhabit together.
10
It's always been them. Ever since Harry had dropped Dexter into their family, through everything that had gone right, wrong, backwards and sideways, they'd had each other.
9
They shut each other out and move along without the other, but they always had each other's backs when it counted. He'd saved her, she'd saved him, more than once, and that was the way it would always be.
8
The music is muffled, like they're hearing it underwater, as if they're absorbing it in the womb. Maybe she's in shock, or maybe the volume has just been turned down on the world since Deb fired an unsilenced gun in a metal echo chamber.
7
Her hand is still on his arm, and for once he doesn't have the urge to shake it off. He doesn't want that contact to end. Even though the people close to him end up hurt or dead, and always because of him one way or the other, he wants her around. He's always wanted her around.
When he proposed to Rita, he'd meant what he said, but if he were totally honest (a dangerous proposition in his line, but he tried to always be honest with himself when it counted) Deb was what made him real. The day Harrison had been born he'd become the third person to do that, a special part of a holy trinity that grounded Dexter where nothing else ever would.
6
For Deb he had been prepared to give everything up. For Deb he had stopped and slain his brother, and avenged another death. He had let her into his personal space, invading it with feet pounding on a treadmill at all hours and dirty laundry and dishes left all over his tidy little universe. He had watched over her, and protected her, and played the dutiful big brother, and let her pick his brain. And he had not invited her to the church that night, to all that it held of secrets and shocks and crimes- but once she had jumped through the wall into that part of his world, he had not managed to kick her out again. Instead, she had stayed. He had let her stay.
5
Dexter had always been there. Maybe not always how she wanted, and maybe not always in a way she could appreciate (at the time) or even see, but he was the one good constant in her life. When that little cop sense had started tingling, she'd pushed it down. When LaGuerta had rattled its cage and brought it back up, she'd found a way to let it lie again. To let that thought run, to allow that concept of truth to roam free, was to believe that Dexter was not the person she'd always thought. Or that somehow, she had missed a huge piece of who he was, one that could not be ignored or altered and one that would shatter her world. Either way, she couldn't allow it.
4
Her hand is still on his arm, because her world is sliding, colliding. She's moving in slow motion through a world that spinning like a tilt-a-whirl, changing direction without warning through flashes of light and movement and noise. She would lose her balance if not for the feel of his muscle under her fingertips. Her bearings would be irretrievable if she lets go of the way the cotton of his shirt brushes her skin. She would be lost if she lost him.
3
It's always been the two of them, for each other. Dexter takes a deep breath, deciding in split seconds as he plans his next step… when he catches a trace of her perfume. The tiniest whiff, laced with gunsmoke, threading through the sweat and booze oozing out of the pulsing throng. Beyond the scent of the surf pounding its own rhythm and the spicy food beyond the bar… there is a faint trace of Deb. Sunshine and tears and clean perspiration and fabric softener and that essence she carries that is wholly unique to her. He's always loved that smell.
2
His eyes close just a second and he draws up short a few yards from the beach. She nearly bumps into him at the abrupt halt, but stops herself in time, leaving him only aware of a faint rise in the temperature at his back. She wonders what could've made him stop like that—and then he turns around. Her hand grazes his body as he invades her personal bubble a bit, not touching, merely asserting his presence there. They are inches apart, probably centimeters at this point, and through the shifting kaleidoscope she sees his pupils dilate, obliterating the pale green in a wash of black in a split second. He's holding still, waiting, allowing her to catch up, to catch her breath, to make the move if she wants to. He has finally figured it out, but ultimately it has to be her decision.
1
Her eyes flick down for a moment, as her mouth does that slight drop to gasp in a quiet breath of realization. A soft ohhh comes out in her exhalation and she leans in across the infinitesimally colossal space between them. Their lips meet, soft and warm and unnervingly tender. Their eyes pop open to gauge each other at the same moment, and he holds a breath until she lets her head decline a fraction of an inch in a nod.
This time, the tenderness is there, but working hard to hold the burgeoning swell of emotion and reaction in check. Fireworks are literally going off as the fingers on her good hand slide into his hair, and she opens her eyes just enough to have flashes of color explode in her peripheral as his arms embrace her gently and pull her flush against him.
When this kiss stops, they'll have to deal with stuff, decide things, make choices. Several choices that are going to range from the hard to the difficult to the downright impossible. But for now, the meeting of lips, the sliding of tongues, the feel of bodies pressed close is enough to make their world contract to the simple space around them. The only two people in their world. Because no matter what, it's always been the two of them. For each other, for now, for always.
A/N: Well, I'll just say I'm still digging the show, but this was borne of someone putting the previous season's breakdowns that open each new season for 4-6 on a loop and springing it on me before holding me down and showing me the S7 finale. So I have a very basic idea of those seasons but this is what I got from the end of S7. Just don't yelp if it's not exact.
In any case, this is what I got and what I thought. Hope you like it. Whether you do or not, please leave a review. Thanks and enjoy!
A/N2: thanks to the Anon reviewer for catching my glitch in Dexter's eye color. It has been corrected.