A/N: Thanks to Mike91848 for reading this over.

Title: Red Crayon

Genre: General/Angst

Word Count: 643

Time-Line: Shortly after Brian is institutionalized.

Warnings: Spoilers for Dexter's past, slight mention of gore, and a touch of angst.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or the premise of this story.

-Story Starts Here-

A red crayon dances across white.

Chatter fills the room around Brian, but he ignores it. He just focuses on his masterpiece. He has always liked coloring, his teachers said that he was the best in the class. He never planned out his drawing, images and colors flowed into his head and he just followed them. He bites his tongue gently, his small hand clutching the red crayon as it glides back and forth across the paper. His mind briefly hears a voice yelling, "No! No! Bonnie doesn't like!", before fading back into the senseless chatter.

A red crayon traces around gray.

Brian likes it like this. Sometimes, when he pretends really hard, it's just like school. They give him meals, there are grown-ups always watching, and he gets regular play time. Sometimes he likes to pretend that it's almost time to go home from school too. That he'll walk out and mommy will pick him up. He'll get into the back seat of her car and Dexter will be hugging him, welcoming him home. Mommy will ask him about his day and Dexter will ask more questions about everything, because he's only three and he still needs to learn about all that stuff. It'd be just another day.

A red crayon flows along pink.

"Nooo!", a big kid slams him hands down on the table next to Brian and screams. Brian is jarred out of his world. The car melts away and he is back to the bad place. The big kid looks at him for a moment before running off. Brian cradles the red crayon near his chest and looks around. People yell and scream, but never really say anything. Everything here is wrong. The people are wrong. They shout at nothing and do weird things. Even weirder than Kevin, the kid who ate glue in Brian's school. They say the same things over and over again, do stuff for no reason. Grown-ups too. There are grown-ups that act wrong. Brian goes back to coloring. Colors and images pour back into his head, and his hands return to putting them on paper. The world around him fades back in to a fuzzy haze. Brian doesn't like it at the bad place, where everything is wrong. And that is why he colors. He heard them say that if you color and play and try really hard to be a normal little boy, they'll let you out. It's just like Pocono, he has to prove he a real boy.

A red crayon spots the yellow.

Brian isn't sure where he'll go when they do let him out. He thinks that daddy will take care of him and his brother. He wishes he could go back to mommy, but mommy is gone. That's what they told him, that mommy is gone and he won't be able to see her ever again. Brian sniffs and briefly pauses in his coloring to wipe a tear from his cheek before returning to his art work.

A red crayon glides into brown.

"What are you drawing?", a grown-up asks, looking over his shoulder. She is normal, not wrong like everyone else. She has a smile that's too big and green eyes that don't shine. Even the normal people aren't right in the bad place. Brian looks at her. He wants to smile, to be normal and show them all he's not wrong like everyone else here, but he can't. He sniffs again, and just tries not to cry. The woman's smile drops and she puts a hand over her mouth before she stands up straight and walks away. Brian only stares at her as she leaves. She disappears in the crowded room quickly. He looks down at his drawing. It's a picture of Dexter, him, and their mommy. She's in pieces. The chainsaw is there.

Everything is red.