a/n: FOR: DEXTER IS DELICIOUS; CHAPTER 13. I would like to point out that some of the stuff in the chapters ahead had already happened by the time that Dexter got a ride in the squad car back to headquarters after what happened when he and Deborah were going to get Bobby Acosta.

In Dexter's POV. Includes Officer Ryan Wolfe from CSI:MIAMI, and spoilers for this book and others in the series, some events will be twisted with AU.

SUMMARY: Dexter gets some helpful advice while getting a ride back to the station, listening is the easy, it's what he's going to do with it that's hard.

Dubious DEXTER

I got a ride back to headquarters in one of the squad cars that had arrived at the scene. With my new emotions coming to light I felt a drop of guilt hit the bottom of Dexter's Bucket; because of Deborah, the officers seemed to be my chauffeurs, and it was my dear sister's fault of course-if she stopped dragging me everywhere...

But I didn't need to feel guilty about this ride, the officer driving was one that I knew, rather well actually. Before the accidental proposal to Rita with my sister's boyfriend, Chutsky's, pinkie ring; when killings without blood started to turn up around my Miami. This was something that would obviously draw my eye; being the way I am about blood. It is something that contradicts my job as a blood-spatter expert, but it is that that makes me good at what I do- not boasting. But it was during that time that I discovered I had a brother, Brian. He was just like me, I'd like to think; but he's more unhinged. While I am controlled and shrouded in a disguise, Brian is not controled and everything he does is shrapneled in counterfeitity. But with the discovery of my brother, came the discovery that I had a cousin as well.

It seems from some clouded memory-recall, it wasn't just me and Brian sitting in that foot of blood from our mother and her associates in that shipping container, but my cousin of the same age. He turned out different than me and Brian, he didn't have a Dark Passenger like us, and wasn't soulless like us. He went through the same trauma as we did, as what Astor and Cody did; but didn't develop a Dark Passenger like the rest of us.

Officer Ryan Wolfe. He was more human than the rest of us, though I seemed to be catching up since the birth of Lily Anne. Some perpetual affects of the event had left Ryan with an obsessive-compulsive disorder and a natural fear of small dark places-but I was sure no one really liked those in the first place. Such as myself, he was obviously in law enforcement, it was a good cover, not that Ryan seemed to need one.

I thought that this could be a time for me to be able to think through a few things: Deborah's sudden bio-clock, Lily Anne of course, how I was going to lead Astor and Cody off the Dark Path, and of course the more immediately, Brian. Ryan seemed to have the same thought.

"You're going to have to take care of this, Dexter." Ryan said plainly.

I looked over to him; he didn't take his eyes from the road, his seat belt was on, his hands at ten and two o'clock. He was the perfect driver, and you would think that he wouldn't be able to survive the murderous roads of Miami, especially going to speed limit. But no one honked at him, swore or flipped him their gallant middle finger, unlike what they did with me. Instead in was like there was a bubble around him. A few feet behind the car everyone was homicidal, brutal in their skills and vicious with their horns, mouth and fingers; but after those few feet, it was like everyone turned civil, they glided passed, no horns, mouths or fingers; then after a few feet in front, apocalypse ensued. I really had to ask him about that some time.

"What do you mean?" I asked innocently.

Ryan rolled his eyes. "Do you really think that this is a time be smart?"

"Yes," I said.

The car screeched to a halt as Ryan stomped on the brakes; though Ryan had only been going the actual speed limit of 60, instead of the Miami norm of 90, I found myself thrown forward into the seat belt, my hands shot out to the dashboard. I praised the person who invented the seatbelt. I sat back in a huff.

"What was that?" I demanded. I looked around us, but again no one was screeching to a halt, kicking their car doors open, and smashing the squad car windows to get at us for blocking a whole lane. They just brushed around us and I was amazed despite myself.

Ryan turned to me, his expression hard. "This is no time to fool around, Dex."

"It seems to me that you're the one that's fooling around." I told him. Now probably wasn't the time be smart, just as Ryan had stated before.

"You have a family now," Ryan said. "Yours."

"Okay," I was not getting it and Ryan's expression said so.

"You don't know Brian the way that I do, Dex." Ryan told me.

"And that would be...?" I raised my brows.

Ryan sighed and finally put his foot back on the gas; the squad car moved forward and traffic resumed normally. Or as normally as whatever was happening.

"How many encounters have you had with Brian? Four, five?" he questioned.

"About," I said.

"And that was within the last two years." he pointed out.

"What's your point?" I asked. I was sure that this was leading somewhere important, Ryan didn't just get that tone of voice if he was just babbling. And Ryan didn't babble either.

"After we were found in that shipping container, it wasn't long before the Morgan's adopted you. I was with the government before a family finally adopted me when I was twelve. No one ever adopted Brian." he told me. "I endured everything that Brian did when we were in the home, and even after I left. He found me." Ryan simply shrugged his shoulders, and I furrowed my brows at him. "Sadly, I have grown used to his disturbing ways after 32 years."

"Very interesting," I deadpanned, wondering what this had to do with anything.

Ryan shot a disappointed look at me through the corner of his eye. "Despite being the soulless monster that tortures and kills the innocent for sick pleasure; Brian can but won't kill family."

"Okay..."

"Sergeant Morgan is not his family." Ryan almost snapped. Not in a way that would say that because Deborah and I weren't blood, that we weren't family. But that Debs wasn't Brian's family. That was something that I finally got and would have gave myself a pat on the back if I wasn't so self-assured in that shard of clarity. "You are his brother and I am his cousin." I nodded along. "But just because he won't kill you, doesn't mean that he won't kill either Rita, Astor or Cody."

I stilled at that, a chilly ice going through my veins. He wouldn't dare! I could feel that Dark Passenger skitter around in its Tower at Dexter's Castle, but I shut it out. What about Lily Anne?

"Lily Anne is his blood." he answered my unspoken question as we stopped at a red light; it must have shown on my expression. "You realized that the instant you spotted him that he hasn't stepped into your spotlight because he wanted to see his niece." he deadpanned.

I looked at him and I found myself breathing hard as he accelerated. I had realized this. And I had been trying to think of a smart way to approach Brian about it. He had appeared out of nowhere, I had thought him dead. I had a sense of relief, as it were, he was my brother, my blood-family after all. But instantly I had felt dread. He admitted that he had been watching me, or more like stalking. Like what I did with the potential playmates for my innocent little hobby that would be no fun if I didn't have anyone to play with. I did not like the feeling that it ensued in me to be on the other side of a Dark Passenger. "He won't touch them," I found that I said it through gnashed teeth, something that I thought only Deborah was capable, my hands clenched. I also found that I meant it, not just Astor and Cody, but Rita, too. I had ultimately become attached to Rita as I formed my relationship with the children.

"It took you this long to come to that conclusion," Ryan shook his head at me in disappointment as he pulled into the station's parking lot. I don't know why it seemed to cut deep, I had been feeling a lot of things as of late. Letting my soul dust off the cobwebs from the Dungeon of Dexter's Castle was a sensitive thing. "Brian was right. You've become Dull, Dexter."

I stared at him. And suffice to say, I was slack jawed. I could not help it, this was a moment that allowed it. "What..." I was Dazed Dexter, proving his point.

"Dexter," Ryan turned to me fully. The keys the squad car were in his hand, his seat belt was undone. We were here, but I wasn't ready to get out. This conversation needed to come to a conclusion that I accepted. "I know that you think that turning away the Darkness inside of you is the best thing for your children, but when you become a Dopey human, who's going to be there to protect them from the real threat?" he raised perfect brows and I was still thrown at how Ryan had not gotten a Dark passenger when Brian and myself had.

Ryan looked at me for a moment longer before he got out from the squad car, leaving Dumb Dexter behind. I will not admit that I was dumb struck; not able to move out of sheer stupidity.

I wanted to hang up my knife and duct tape after I first saw Lily Anne in that nursery. I had been speechless, still was at just the prospect that I had helped to create that. Something so innocent, unblemished by me and the world. I did not want her around any Dark Passengers, not mine and not Cody's. I would become a human, a real one, not a phony. I would lock away the Passenger in Dexter's Castle Tower and unlock the rusty chains of the Dungeon and bar my Soul. For Lily Anne.

And it had gone so well. Until Brian. The handle on the Dark Passenger's door rattled. Just the thought of my brother brought up feelings that I didn't know I had, ones that made the Passenger gleeful. And me sour. I had wanted to think, that like me, Brian was trying to change, putting his Dark Path behind him. That maybe, like me, he was using Lily Anne to make a familial connect? It was rather hard to believe—but then I had thought about me and how it was just as unlikely that I would forswear my Dark Passenger. I had though, so maybe it was likely that their was a chance for Brian. But then again, maybe I could clap my hands together three times and bring Tinker-bell back to life. So it was just as likely that Brian was never going to stray form his Dark Path or leave my family alone.

Ryan was doubly right. Now that I was trying to become more human for Lily Anne, I had become Doubly Dull Dim Dumb Dex-Daddy. I had forsworn my Dark passenger, who, let's face it, I counted on for nearly everything and it seemed to be the foreman of Dexter's Fortress. And now that I disowned it, I was a Dumb as every person on this homicidal rock. And the other thing was that I had to make Brian go away. But how? I knew that by just asking him nothing would happen, and telling him either wouldn't work. I had tried that, prepared the words in my head, I had even gone as far as opening my mouth, but Dutiful Dexter Malfunctioned. Brian went on his merry way, and the next time that I had arrived back home, he was sitting merrily on the couch— surrounded by my family.

I thought of this solution before, but Brian was my family— my brother. I couldn't do it. But... it wouldn't be going against the Harry Code [I knew personally that Brian would be the best-est playmate out there], and he didn't give the same courtesy to Deborah.

It was the only way. I knew this and Ryan obviously knew this because he circled me around back to it. I would have preferred not to have to do this, it was a big mess. Rita and the kids would wonder about Brian's sudden disappearance, them getting pettily attached to the soulless monster at a quick pace. Rita because of his phony charm that she couldn't see through if it gave her the perfect cleaning solution, and Astor and Cody wanted him around because Uncle Brian was taking each of their hands and leading them down the Dark Path, unlike what I had promised.

I shook my head and set my shoulders as I finally got out of the car. The next time I saw Brian or the next time that Brian saw me, he'd be looking up at me from under layers of duct tape. I was foolish to think that becoming more human would be a good thing, I wasn't meant to be human. I was a monster, one that was able to protect my family, my Lily Anne from the other monsters. This something I knew how to do, something that I could do, and do well.

Ryan was right. And now that he had directed me back onto the Path, I would do right. Back in Dexter's Castle, I shoved my soul back into the Dungeon, sliding the bolt back into place. Up in the Tower I felt the stretch of leather wings, the jubilant glee as the Passenger splinted the wooden door that encased it and dove out an open window. It nearly knocked me off my feet, I had to put my hands on the roof of the car to stabilize myself. After getting it under control, I continued my way back to my beat up car.

Doing this was the only way. He may be my brother, but I had a different family to think about now.

f

I cannot believe that there aren't more Dexter-CSI:Miami crossovers; they star in the same location! I am currently reading Dexter is Delicious, and am enjoying it and I couldn't seem to stop thinking about sticking Ryan Wolfe in there somewhere. :)
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