Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/144301. Season 5 spoilers.

Unconditional

"It was me."

That was such a fucking stupid thing for Dexter to say, for so many reasons. I mean, I understand grief. And irrational guilt. I've been there, done that, joined the fucking club, all that shit. But even in my most desperate, depressed moments—when the only thing keeping me from jumping off a bridge or slitting my wrists was the fear of what would happen to my stupid-ass idiot of a brother without me, when I felt like a worthless excuse for a cop who couldn't recognize a killer even if he was balls deep inside her, when I felt so sure that Frank's death was my fault—I would never have fucking said so to the police without a disclaimer a mile long tacked on telling them I didn't mean I was the one who fucking shot him.

You would have to be a fucking retard to think I shot Frank even if I said so, but that's completely besides the point. Dexter comes out, covered in Rita's blood, says she's inside and that it was him. That's bound to raise a few eyebrows. It even fucking raised mine a little, in a "you can't really be that much of an idiot" way, but still... It got me thinking. Irrational guilt can seriously fuck with your mind, I get that, but...

But.

Dex can be an ass sometimes, you know? Clueless as fuck, emotionally tone deaf... sometimes I used to think he had fucking Asperger's or something. But he's my brother and I love him no matter what. Isn't that how it's supposed to be? You love your brother unconditionally, right? No matter who he is, no matter what he does...

That's where this line of reasoning starts to get seriously fucked up, isn't it? Did Dexter love his brother, even though he tried to kill me? But who the fuck am I to say that he shouldn't? I mean, look at me, for fuck's sake. I love Dex and he's... well. I don't really have a fucking clue what he is.

He's tried to tell me so many times, but I would never fucking listen. He was always dropping hints, saying he wasn't a good person, that I would be better off without him, shit like that. Well, that last thing is so fucking not true. At all. Without him, I wouldn't be here. Several times over.

You know how people are always talking about nightmares where they show up for school naked and shit? Sometimes—and it used to happen a lot more, but now it's only sometimes—I have nightmares like that, only I'm not at school or work or any normal fucking place. I'm naked on one of those shit-tastic folding tables they put the donuts on in big fucking meetings and I'm wrapped in fucking plastic wrap, like I'm a victim of the motherfucking Bay Harbor Butcher. And, like I said, I used to have this dream all the time, but it went away for a while. Anyway, after all the shit I went through with the Ice Truck Killer and then jumping head first into trying to catch the Butcher, I always assumed I was mixing my metaphors or whatever the fuck you call it when your imagery is completely fucked, because, yeah, I really had been tied up on a table like that when Rudy—Brian—whatever you want to call the douchebag who tried to kill me—kidnapped me.

But the plastic wrap was part of the Butcher's MO, not the Ice Truck Killer's, so that part must have just been a dream, right? Well, I thought so too, for a long fucking time, but then I remembered. I remembered how terrifying it had been lying there, tied down, not able to move, with Douchebag and Dexter having a wrestling match over a knife above me. I remembered what it felt like when my sweaty skin stuck to the motherfucking plastic wrap that was holding me down. And that's not the kind of thing my brain would just pull out of its fucking ass. Hell, my brain can't even imagine what it's like to do normal fucking dream shit, OK? If I haven't experienced it for real, I can't do it in a dream. My subconscious is really fucking unimaginative, all right?

So Douchebag tied me down with plastic wrap and then he gets Dexter to come have a looky loo and then what? Why?

It took me for-fucking-ever to figure it out. I'm talking years here. It shouldn't have taken so long, but I have a blind spot a mile wide about Dexter. Douchebag figured it out way before I did. That's why he used the plastic wrap on me. He knew. He knew what Dexter was.

After I found out he and Dexter were brothers, I searched through microfilm until my eyes were almost fucking bleeding, but I found it. How their mother died. Fucking chainsaw. And they fucking saw it. It was the last piece of a puzzle I didn't even realize I had been putting together, but, damn it, there it was staring me in the face. I mean, what are the fucking chances that there were two serial killers in Miami chopping people into neat little pieces back to fucking back?

So now I know. What am I gonna do about it? Fucking nothing, that's what.

I thought about it for maybe a millisecond. Come on, what do you want from me? This is kind of a big fucking deal, you know? You can't fucking blame me for having a few doubts. All that matters is that I didn't do it. Couldn't. I mean, seriously. How could I? It would have been the most epic fucking betrayal of all time. After all he's done for me, I couldn't be the douche who turned him in. Especially after letting Number 13 off the hook. I don't know her from Adam and he's my brother, for fuck's sake!

And you know what? The shit he's done? It's not so fucking bad, when you come down to it. At least, I understand where he's coming from. I mean, God, maybe I wouldn't have a year ago, two years ago. But after Frank died, after the Santa Muerte shit, after shooting that murdering sack of shit asshole in the head and feeling like it was the best damn thing I ever did for the world... well, fuck. I get it. And maybe Dad got it, too, but I don't think he got it as much as I do, because when he shot people he felt fucking awful about it, but I didn't. I don't think I would, either, if I had to do it again.

Dexter's not a danger to society, he's a danger to the dangers of society. If he can bend the rules to help take the fucking garbage off the street without getting caught, more power to him.