"Because I don't want to be alone again."

Uh-oh. Look at his eyes. Searching for something. Not enough human. Do something.

Dexter pulled his lips a little tighter, adjusting the corners just enough to implicate a smile. A hardenen, stoic smile that he'd seen Harry wearing many times.

A glint in Holme's eyes, recognition.

"... For various reasons onto which we will continue shortly, I'll... simply have to turn you down here, from the start, because beyond that fact that you're a murderer, I must tell you I'm quite singularly in love with my work-"

"No. No- not like-" He found himself swiftly advancing on the detective, apparently not something Holmes was accustomed to seeing performed with such effortlessness or he'd have reacted sooner. As it was he nearly tumbled back over the coffee table, but glided sideways to regain his balance in a susipciously graceful move, evading Dexter's attempt to catch his upper arm first. He straightened up slowly, eyes catching Sherlock's. Put the hand, still extended, down to his side. A beat between them passed.

He said, "Not like that. I don't want...- " He sighed, hands at his sides, looking at the floor with a fleeting mixture of rage and amusement. I'm getting very good at these from being around John so much... Then it was too tiring. Blank. A small sighed laugh escaped him as he calmly lifted his eyes until he'd caught the other man's gaze again. His eyes were...

Deb appeared out of nowhere, jamming herface up into Sherlock's unseeing face.

'Fucking CREEPY, Dex.This guy's a fucking murderer. I KNOW he is.'

Not now, Deb...

He breathed.

Actually, he felt relieved to finally say it all, now. "As you can see, Sherlock, I'm rather married to mine, anyway..."

Sherlock stared back down at the more-or-less still neatly plasti-wrapped head, excluding strip that had covered his face which now lay like a translucent carpet inviting the viewer to see the excessively mutilated mouth on an otherwise unmolested and mundane severed head. His eyes darted over five various points of this tableau, then returned his gaze to Dexter.

"You think that I wouldn't have noticed the difference between this head and the other, Mr. Morgan? Really? Here I was, thinking we had come to understand each other so much better than that."

Dexter said, "Clearly." Blank, but slightly mocking.

Holmes' expression darkened, but still he inclined his head in concession to the point.

Before he could begin on his line of deductions that lead him to the right conclusion, Dexter took an interrupting breath in, nodding his head back towards the kitchen behind them.

"I put it in the freezer while you and Watson were out, last night, after I had put the fridge onto the coldest settings-" -Sherlock mercifully held his tongue about his American vernacular - "-then stuck it in the fridge about an hour before you had gotten back. Turned it back down, let the condensation fog the wrap again, and by that time most of the excess cold would have been gone. The temperature difference should have been... "

He craned his neck just slightly to the left to let the detective know he was studying what betraying information his body was giving to Dexter, even if Dexter's face wasn't up to the task of faking any more emotions than he already had at the moment.

Fear, not much. He's interested, fascinated by this. Me. Pupil dilation. Thin white skin; superior visibility of his carotid artery. Accelerated heart rate.

" - it should have been negligible."

Sherlock replied immediately with a disgusted, "I know the temperature of my own fridge."

"That's not true." He knew he looked genuinely confused.

"What?"

"That can't be true. If that were true, why would you continuously set the temperature five degrees above what's necessary to keep milk from spoiling?"

"Oh shut up!" One of his white hands up to cover his mouth, covering the scowl that his brow still gave away. Then he whipped it away to stretch out a plaintive hand, accusing the imposter-head. "And where's MY head gone, if you don't mind?!"

"Speedy's."

Sherlock's hands steepled once again in front of his face, eyes shutting and head bowing forward just a bit. "You put my head head in Speedy's freezer?"

"Yes."

Deb sighed, and Dexter felt her hand slap his shoulder as her voice disappeared somewhere far beyond the wall behind them.

'You reeeeally fucked it up this time, big brother...'

The silence that then passed between them was telling. Dexter was almost inclined to say it was... pleasant. Neither of them made any moves, just Sherlock inhaling calmly in and out through his palms. All of it was out there, now. Everything. Sherlock Holmes knew Dexter Morgan was a serial killer. He was even probably piecing it together through his mind now, which one. Harry was gone. Deb was leaving him to face this one, alone, again. Even the Dark Passenger was speechless, frozen in its usual grip on his mind and unable to guide him through whatever came next. Everything was peaceful, and up in the air.

Then it all landed.

An undeniable, tight-lipped, deep little giggle was beginning to escape from behind Sherlock Holmes' hands.

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