I watch her frown as she carefully twists the tiny silver prongs in the lock. That look of concentration on her face speaks to me of other times when I have seen her look just like this and that spirals me into an entirely new realm of thought. New and inappropriate.
Something clicks and she grins to herself, mentally punching the air as she feels the lock give way for her. Just like I have. I can spot a metaphor when I see one. The lock breaking open as she delicately manoeuvres herself between the mechanisms designed to keep people out. How very apt, I think to myself. She leans back and breathes but she doesn't check the stopwatch. She set her own deadline, independent and determined to succeed in this as she is in everything else. It's one of the things which make her so fascinating. That and the frightening strength inside that slight body. The things she has seen, experienced and done are staggering. Even for an ex monster like me.
Because that's what I am. An ex monster. For years I thought Harry was right but now I realise that he only saw part of the picture, like someone looking through a keyhole sees only the empty room and doesn't see the plastic sheeting, the plastic wrap binding the victim to the table, the pictures taped to the walls, the blood…
Another click, she looks up at me and smiles. Amazing what that smile does to me. How her light shines into my dark corners, illuminating the shadows, seeing everything I am. She stands up and opens the door, swinging it out with a flourish. I smile and she beams. She tiptoes up to kiss me.
Her soft lips touch mine and it's like it always is, like the first time. I fight to keep the burning tower of desire escaping my control. Her knowledge of me, her wisdom and bravery, her ability to kill consumes me in a way I had never imagined I would feel. What did Debra call it? Beautiful. My Dark Passenger has someone with whom to ride into the dark streets. Someone with whom to hunt.
"How did I do?" she asks, taking my hand to look at the stopwatch.
"Five seconds better than last time." I smile. "You're a quick learner." She nods, happy with herself.
"Have we got time to…?" she grins sheepishly, I roll my eyes.
"We always have time for that." I tell her, enjoying the innuendo. I reach into the kit bag and get out the wrap which holds my knives. Her eyes glitter as I unpeel the soft material revealing the smart silver blades. I hand her the largest and she watches herself in its sheen. I see her face, split open by the light and full of joy. I breathe out a breath I didn't know I was holding. The blade flashes down as she slashes the air. She holds it like it is a part of me, careful and loving.
She's so entranced with the knife that she doesn't hear the footsteps coming down the side alley. This warehouse is out of the way of most people's usual routes to work and it's early morning so we weren't expecting interruptions. I grab her arm and she slides the knife out of sight, glancing about her so her fine blonde hair catches the early morning sun. Without feeling for my hand she passes me the blade. I slip it into the case and pack it swiftly in the bag, hoisting it onto my shoulder.
I clutch her hand and swing her out into the sunshine. We stroll towards the footsteps, a carefree couple enjoying the morning sun. I squeeze her fingers.
"Billy!" I shout for our imaginary dog. "Billy! Come back here boy!" she smiles to herself and turns to me just as the elderly security guard, no doubt a retired cop, comes into view.
"Sorry sir, have you seen our dog? He's about this big," she measure with her hand from the floor, "and black. Honestly I only let him off the leash for a second honey," these last words are directed at me. I roll my eyes at the old man who chuckles.
"Haven't seen any dog so far on my rounds but I'll keep my eyes open for you miss." He grins. Lumen smiles back at him and I can see he is taken in entirely. Who wouldn't be?
When we get back to the SUV she climbs into the passenger seat like it belongs to her. I check my watch and then my phone. There's a text from Debra.
'Hey Fuckwad brother, get your ass to the waterfront. Lots of blood.' Lumen watches me check the text, I show it to her and she smiles. She likes Debra, they're quite alike. Blunt, no nonsense, brave.
"I'll drop you off home on my way in. Got plans for today?" Lumen watches the cars pass us on the road, I look at her reflection in the windscreen as I pull away from the kerb and swerve into traffic.
"I'm meeting Sonja for lunch with Harrison later. But I have no plans today. Why? Have you got some research for me to do?" she is eager for the next kill. I know how she feels. It's been a while since the last time and I can feel the itch under my skin beginning.
"Not yet, but something will come up soon. Someone." I amend and she grins. We listen to the radio; loud music with a Latin feel seems to compliment the hot morning air. There is a comfortable silence between us. We don't need to fill the space between us with idle chatter, though we like to sometimes, just to prove to ourselves how normal we are. Most of the best parts of our relationship are completed in silence.
I swing the car to the side of the road and she pops the door open, grabbing her purse from the back seat and planting a kiss on my cheek as she slides off the chair and onto the sidewalk.
"Call me when you're on your way home." She waves and swings her bag onto her shoulder.
"Ok, have a good day." I drive to the waterfront where I find Debra and the rest of the team waiting for me, the blood guy.
"Took your time Dex!" this is Debra, a coiled spring of fire and expletive, my stepsister.
"Hey! If I had a girl like Dex's at home I wouldn't be rushing to get out of bed either!" Masuka, small Asian and possessing of an alarming knowledge of sexual deviance skips over to us, pleased with his quip. Debra rolls her eyes. "Is that what made you late huh Dex?" I smile and I know it looks forced. I'm only just getting used to these guys knowing about Lumen.
I have no idea how long people are supposed to mourn. I tried to look it up on the internet but all the various counselling sites seemed to disagree. In the end I didn't get a choice because Deb just didn't believe me when I said that Lumen was my tenant. She'd made some comment which made it quite clear she thought I was telling her a load of bull. And she was right. Only, right then, Lumen wasn't my girlfriend, but there was more, much more to our relationship than I was prepared to tell anyone. She'd seen me kill.
"Huh huh, he's not telling eh, Dex? A gentleman doesn't tell eh?" Masuka sniggers and nudges me in the ribs none too gently and I shrug. Deb rolls her eyes.
"So, blood?" I say, snapping on my latex gloves as she walks me over to where Angel and Quinn are looking at the ground. They look up and Angel smiles as he sees me. I squint in the sunlight at the marks on the ground.
It looks like a body has been dragged from this spot. The blood pattern is consistent with the victim still being alive when the dragging begun, the heart was still pumping blood at least until they had been dragged into the shade of the palms. The killer wasn't a big person; they took their time dragging the body this far, which implies they were small, young or maybe female. It's obviously a stabbing; sharp swirls of red punctuate each downward thrust with a sharp object. Is it any surprise my mind wanders to Lumen? Lumen swinging that knife down in a slice of silver, Lumen kneeling on the table to get a decent arc of motion on Alex Tilden, Lumen stabbing a finger into his forehead as her soft mouth says 'Thirteen'. I sigh and smile to myself.
"Hey Dex! Something amusing about this amigo?" Angel puts his arm over my shoulder and ushers me back to reality. I shake my head.
"No, no. just walking it out in my head." I cover hastily watching the smears of blood become dots and then...nothing. I frown, which way did they go?
"Hey! Over here!" It's Quinn beckoning to us from behind a parked white van. I jog over, keen to finish the puzzle and stop suddenly as a girl's pale body lies sprawled nearly under the truck's shadow, her dark hair fanned out like a black halo. It's the young woman from the coffee stand where Lumen and I grab our morning drink. She's always polite, smiles at me and asks if I'm doing anything good today. She knows how to make the coffee how I like it. I feel mildly annoyed that someone has killed her.
"You know her?" Angel looks at me and touches my arm. The recognition must show on my face and I find within me that part which is sad that my morning coffee will not be how I like it anymore and I grimace.
"Yeah, she works at the coffee stand on 8th. I go there most mornings." Angel looks at me and Quinn frowns and looks back at the body. I know he doesn't trust me but he's got no reason to think I'm anything to do with this.
"Name?" I shake my head, trying to remember the tag she wore on her shirt but nothing's coming back to me. The last few times I've been more occupied with my drinking companion than the waitress. My phone buzzes in my pocket.
"Hi, want to do something fun later? Lx" I smile, knowing that Masuka is going to ask me what the text says and make a few suggestions of his own. Mine and Lumen's idea of fun is very different to what he imagines.
"Sexting Dexter? Ooh that's almost a rhyme! Hey! Don't let me stop you getting your e rocks off!" he leers and I nod and smile noncommittally. I quickly send a text back.
"Sure, what do you have in mind? D." my thumb hovers over the 'x'; it just doesn't seem me somehow. This isn't like texting Rita, where the slightest little addition or omission could spark a whole raft of emotional upheaval. I send it raw and put the phone back in my pocket. The sun is beating down now and I watch the heat shimmer from the tarmac and realise that, if I'm going to get this crime scene done early, I'm going to have to start soon.
Four hours, four blonde hairs bagged, various blood spatters photographed and no murder weapon found. I head off back to the SUV having assured Deb that I'll process the blood later. I grab a clean shirt from the back seat of the car and pull off the one I've been wearing. Hours in the hot Miami sun and the smell of a crime scene are not attractive to anyone and I don't want to meet Lumen like this.
I smile to myself as I consider this change in my personality. Have I ever cared before about how I looked? Not beyond wanting to fit in, be unrecognised. There's a quotation from Dracula which always makes me smile. Something about no one noticing a stranger in a strange land. Stoker's serial killer had as much to hide as I do. I check my hair in the rear view mirror and flatten it with my hand. I start the engine and indicate out onto the highway.
The bright sunshine bakes through the windshield bouncing glare of the passing cars. Something about that blonde hair is niggling in my head. Of course the waitress could have had a blonde flatmate, be borrowing someone else's shirt but there was something about the shade of blonde which is scratching at the bottom on my subconscious.
I weave my way through the late afternoon traffic. Even with the windows down there is no breeze and I try to recall the last conversation I had with the waitress.
"Two coffees please..." I'm about to tell her how to make them but she just grins and grabs two paper cups.
"The usual?" I smile and nod and she begins the coffee ritual, banging the old grounds and grinding the new beans as she leans on the counter. "So, doing something good today?" Always the same cheery smile, the same cheery questions.
I look around the small area where the owner has set up some tables and chairs. It's the usual clientele. A new mother with her baby, a teenage boy on his way to school, skateboard parked under the chrome table.
"work." I smile and she pulls a face and laughs.
"Let me guess... you're a teacher?" I shake my head. We've played this game for weeks. It's unlikely she's ever going to guess 'blood splatter analyst and serial killer' but it's a harmless way to spend the time. There is a hand on my elbow, it's Lumen.
"Oh, hi. I thought you were staying in the car? Is Harrison ok?" I glance nervously to the back seat where I can see a small orange toy being waved about, Harrison seems fine. Lumen pauses and takes a long look at the waitress who is frothing the milk and humming to herself.
"He's fine. I just thought you might need a hand." I frown, a hand with two coffee cups? This must be code for something else. I look at Lumen who is still looking at the waitress and there's something in her expression that makes me pause. Is she jealous? Of the waitress? I sigh; it seems I will never understand this. What do I do now?
"Thanks, that's great." I kiss her cheek and she smiles eyes never leaving the waitress who is putting the cups on the counter. Lumen takes both cups and waits while I get out my wallet and pay.
"Have a good day, you guys!" the waitress calls before she turns to the next customer. Lumen hands me a coffee so she can climb into the passenger seat.
"She seems nice." She says, looking at me sideways, gauging my reaction.
"Huh?" I answer as I pull out into traffic, jamming my cup into the holder on the dashboard.
"The waitress, she seems nice. Do you see her every morning?" Something in her voice makes me look at her and then I go back to the road, I'm a careful driver.
"I don't know, maybe, I guess." I take another sip of my coffee as we pause at the lights.
"hmm." Lumen says thoughtfully.
I'm recalling this when I realise that, back in real time, the lights have changed and some guy in a Mercedes is honking his horn and yelling at me to move. I wave a friendly apology and put my foot on the gas. Yes, Lumen definitely didn't like that waitress.
She's waiting at the kerb as I pull over. The sun plays over her golden hair and she looks alive and shining. Her skinny jeans and the sunny yellow top she wears make her look younger than she is.
"Hi, good day?" she asks, mirroring my memories of the waitress. I look at her sharply.
"Well there's a murdered waitress at the waterfront so I guess it depends on what you call good." I smile and she frowns.
"A murdered waitress? God. I don't know how you can see those things all the time Dexter." I let that idea play over in my mind. This is the woman who can kill a man and say she feels fine, a woman who has watched me kill more than one man. But this proximity I have with death, the by product of murder, unnerves her. She is not a monster.
"Yeah. The girl from the 8th coffee stand." I watch her expression carefully. She frowns and then her eyes go wide.
"Jeannie? Oh god! What happened to her." She sound shaken and her hand goes to her throat.
"Stabbed, repeatedly, dragged behind a van in the parking lot. She was already dead by the time the killer got her there. They weren't very strong so the whole thing probably took a while." Lumen takes a deep breath and looks straight ahead. We don't speak for a while.
"Where do you want to go?" I ask as we get to the junction for home.
"Can we drive down near the beach? I want to sit and look at the waves." She smiles at me and I turn the car.
She switches the radio on and the DJ is speaking in Spanish, saying something about the weekend is on its way and the pretty girls are out in the sunshine. Lumen asks me what he is saying and I tell her. I reach my hand out and run my fingers through her hair and leave my hand resting on her shoulder. She laughs and puts my hand on her thigh. I squeeze that taut muscle and she sighs, a sound that sends tremors through me.
We get out of the car and walk onto the beach. She grabs my hand and holds it close to her side. We walk in silence until we reach some rocks. She pulls me down to sit with her.
"How was Harrison? We should try to get back soon so we can take him to the park, Sonja's asked for an early finish tonight."
"He's great, have you seen him pull himself along the floor now? He's so strong." She smiles and I relish in the fact that with her I can share conversations like this. She leans in to me and kisses my cheek. I hold her face with one hand and kiss the side of her mouth, uncertain even through our time together whether this is something I'm allowed to do, whether this attention is wanted.
She kisses me back, capturing the hand on her cheek with her own slim fingers and pressing her mouth against me. Her other hand holds my hand down in my lap, she leans her weight on her arms, pinning me in place while she investigates my lips. I moan and she catches her breath.
My heart is pounding and I can feel my body's response to her touch. All that longing, that hidden side of me is waiting to be set free. She pulls back.
"If we go home we could wait for Sonja to bring Harrison to the apartment." She says innocently. I nod, unable to speak.
Ok, so this is my first Dexfic. It's a bit of a challenge to swap from Sherlock to Dxter but I tried my best. This is a two parter I think, will be an M rating next time! Let me know what you think... cheers for reading.