Sleepless
Setting: "Crocodile"

A warm breeze puffs through the curtains, brushes across my back like fingertips. I listen to the occasional car pass the building, and, much less distantly, the steady sound of breathing. Sean fell asleep fifteen or twenty minutes ago. I wish I could join him, but I still feel too wired, even after all our messing around. I'm just glad he doesn't snore.

I sigh.

LaGuerta, that vindictive bitch. I don't know how I ever convinced myself that me being the one who brought up the ice truck to begin with would change anything. When I asked to help look for it this morning she gave me this look like I was a toddler she'd been forced to babysit, said no and sent me right back out to the motel. At this point I've interviewed everyone who's even remotely associated with the Seven Seas looking for some "eye witness" who "interrupted" the killer, as if it wasn't patently obvious by now to me and half the cops working this case that not only is there no witness but there was never any interruption to begin with. Even Doakes agreed with me this morning when he overhead me bitching to Batista. Yet she refuses to let me touch any other aspect of the investigation, even when it was my theory that panned out. Hell, from what I can tell she's basically disregarded that I said anything in that briefing— when she talks about the ice truck she only ever mentions Dexter.

It's frustrating as fuck.

I rub my eyes, push the skin back to my temples.

Dexter. LaGuerta gave him the day off today, just as a break from all the shit getting thrown at him, though I'm a little surprised he isn't either taking or being given more leave. I think he's getting debriefed tomorrow. I don't know what possessed him to follow that ice truck, and it kind of scares me that the killer clearly noticed him do it. Dexter may not have seen his face, but that doesn't mean the psycho fuck didn't see his. And why the fuck would he throw her head at his car? Why did he have it sitting in his seat? Was he planning to dump it somewhere when Dexter found him? Or was it just keeping him company?

My brother doesn't seem to be asking any of these questions. In fact, he seems totally nonplussed about the whole thing. Keeps saying he's fine. I would've gone over today after work but he insisted it wasn't necessary, that he'd made plans with Rita anyway. Maybe he talks to her, I don't know, but I feel like if it were me I'd be pretty fucked up about the whole thing. I mean, a head? Fucking... frozen solid as Ted Williams and tossed onto my windshield? Even discounting that, the fact that this guy who's murdered at least four women saw me? I feel like I wouldn't be nearly as casual about all this as my brother seems.

But, then again, that's Dexter. Calm as still waters. If I had a hundred dollars for every time he's registered an emotion that wasn't merely lukewarm I wouldn't have enough to make a rent payment.

I roll onto my back, make another effort at clearing my head, but my thoughts keep swirling around and around.

Tami Burgess. Rachel Lewis. The two Jane Does.

I went to the morgue today as the coroner matched the head to the fourth victim, watched him stick it in a box and take dental x-rays, tuck the negatives into a folder with her case number. We know nothing about these two new dead women except for how they died, but on some level I do know them. They're the same women I would hang out with every day undercover. Virtually everything I told those women was a lie, but some very tiny part of me could appreciate our relationships. Girl bonding and all that crap. A handful of shared experiences. For the most part they were decent human beings who'd ended up in their situations for a variety of reasons, not all of which they could seem to control. I'm betting that these two Jane Does probably would've told me similar stories if they'd been on one of my streets.

As for the two who do have IDs, we know barely any more. Rachel doesn't have any family: she was a ward of the state until the system puked her out at 18. Tami's got a mother in Broward County Jail on drug charges and no known father, as well as a sister living in Charlotte who's working as a waitress and basically cut ties with her family. These two women were, as far as we could tell, alone in the world when they were taken, murdered, and cut into pieces. At least Tami's sister is willing to claim her body. Rachel's likely to sit on ice in the morgue until the case is closed, at which point she'll probably be sent to potter's field.

I really want this guy, and not just as a stepping stone into Homicide. No one deserves to be robbed of a name and a future like that.

I still remember the way Dad would sometimes talk about working homicide, on those rare occasions we did talk. Maybe this is why he worked so hard to try to shield me from all this shit, so I wouldn't be kept up at night by it the way I think he was. But I'm a lot stronger than Dad ever gave me credit for, and I feel at home in the station. I have from the second I was issued my badge.

Even if I really can't fucking sleep tonight.

I roll back onto my side, look at Sean. He hasn't stirred. The dim, orange-ish light coming from the window lightly outlines his nose, his brow, the line of his shoulder as it disappears under the blanket. His expression is totally slack: no worries, no nightmares. I don't know why that kind of annoys me, but it does. And the longer I watch him sleep, the more I realize I want something from him. Maybe I knew that was inevitable the second he fell asleep before me.

A minute passes where the pressure builds, before I finally push myself up and closer to him, brush his hair from his forehead.

"Hey," I whisper, leaning down to his ear. "Wake up."

He doesn't respond, but the proximity is already jacking my heart rate. Maybe it's just that I can feel the warmth radiating in the inches off his skin. He grunts as I gently push him onto his back, and I follow his movement, climb half over him, curl my foot around his knee. I feel keyed to my awareness of our bodies, every point of contact. Skin on skin on hair. And suddenly I can smell our sweat again, hints of detergent and deodorant. His musk. Everything else is falling away. Rapidly. I find I can't remember why I cared about the ice truck.

I find his lips, smooth back his hair.

"Hmmnnhh," he moans. His eyes open. "What?"

"Wake up," I say into his mouth. After a second, he lets me inside, and I can feel the tension melt, instantly, away. The sound and the feel of it. Tongues and air. I don't remember anything anymore. I trail one of my hands down his chest, slide it down below the blanket and below the border as the other anchors to his side. And then I'm following it down, trailing kisses down his chin, down his sternum, down, down, all the way. Skin and soft muscle. His back arches as I find my hand again. As his fingers run through my hair. Tighten at the roots.

"God you're so fucking sexy," he breathes. His voice is throaty.

I don't say anything. There's nothing but this in the dark. Lips and flesh and heat. The weight of the blanket.

I don't care anymore.

I'm hot all over.