Auld Lang Syne
by Bangfangs
(This fic is mirrored at my tumblr: deadthingsloveyou)
"Paper Hearts"
The weeks it takes Dexter to recover are long and slow. After a few days, he's released from the hospital, his leg still bandaged to cover the ugly line that runs from his hip to his ankle. He insists the most annoying part is the frequent pins and needles feeling from his damaged nerves, though his hobble has to be weighing on his mind. Deb knows it would be on hers.
She masters the art of slipping out of his apartment after everyone is gone and asleep, and leaving before everyone awakes and arrives. She spends more time driving the streets of Miami late at night than she ever did as a uniform. She even ends up ticketing a few drunk drivers, which looks good for her record, since her close rate is still kind of shitty.
The people of Miami still kill each other for all the usual reasons: drugs, prostitution, gang rivalries. Her younger detectives process everything as efficiently as possible; but really, compared to the last five years or so, murder is almost boring in her hometown. There are no serial killers puzzling and intriguing her, no creativity to puzzle and challenge the lab geeks. And she's sleeping with the only serial killer she knows.
She's curled in his arms one night, talking in the smallest of whispers with him when he poses the obvious question.
"Is this weird?" He motions to their entwined bodies.
"This-" she slides a palm across his chest to his stomach, and sliding even closer, "this has been happening for what, three months now, and this is when you ask if it's weird?"
"Well," he says sheepishly, "I just wondered."
"Why?" She half sits up, looking at his face. "Does it feel weird to you now?"
"No, it feels... normal. Like you're finally where you belong in my life..." he trails off as she slips her hand under his boxers.
"Oh, this is where I belong?" she quips as she grasps him, then gasps as he grabs her around the waist and flips them. "Yes," he growls, his voice low. "It is." He nips at her chin on his way down her neck, and she fists her hands in his hair. His fingers follow the dip of her waist to the slim flare of her hips, smoothing down her long thighs. Before he takes her breast in his mouth, he says, "You never answered me. Weird?"
"For many reasons, yes." He looks up at her with hurt in his eyes. "What? I didn't say I wanted it to stop. I guess I like weird." Apparently satisfied, he circles her with his tongue. "I guess I love weird."
It's the next Monday by the time Debra quits walking funny, and it's mostly because they haven't seen each other in two days. Her schedule has gotten busy, and Jaime took off to Boston with Quinn, so Dex has sole responsibility for Harrison whenever he's not in daycare.
She works a couple of cases, files an expense report and does the schedule and budget for next month, and is glad it was a quiet weekend.
Her whole drive home, she can all but hear her bathtub calling her name, demanding a nice soak with candles and bubbles and salts, all that girly shit. Maybe even some soft music. And there's a box of cake mix and a can of frosting in the closet from last week, probably the only unexpired things left in her little beach house. She's never been great at grocery shopping, and with as little time as she's been spending at home, it looks like a homeless person's shack. Dust bunnies and dirty laundry lurk in most of the corners...she decides that maybe she'll skip baking the cake and just go for the frosting.
It's around nine o'clock when she opens the screen door, and finds a little pink paper heart taped to the storm door. It has handwriting on it: "Hi." Debra smiles as she peels it off the glass; fuckin' dweeb.
She unlocks the wooden door and enters, throwing her purse and keys down on the entry table and stretching as she walks toward the bathroom. She hopes he's lurking here somewhere.
Instead, there's another heart taped to the bathroom door. "Debra" is all it says. She rolls her eyes at this one. Is this some kind of game, or just his confused attempt at romance? She remembers the hearts she's gotten in the mail these past few weeks, the date: 3-13-13. She thumps herself on the forehead; of course, that's today's date.
"Dex, come out!" she calls. "This is cute and all, but seriously, you didn't have to...there better not be a fuckin' ring in the fridge, that's all I'm gonna say." Silence is all the response she gets.
She opens the bathroom door, and the mirror is fogged up, a hot bath already run, and there are a few candles flickering in the otherwise darkened room. There are paper hearts floating in the bubbles; their words are all smudged, so she crosses over and dips her fingers in the water, pulling one out.
The smile flees from her features; her heart drops to her stomach. All of the hearts say the same thing:
"Sorry."
"Audi!" Angel barks. His harried daughter whirls in mid-step and demands, "WHAT?!"
"You forget the fries for Table Two. And the entree for Four." When she starts to dart back toward him, he holds up his hand. "No, no. Take those, come back for these. I'll take Table Two's."
She mutters something under her breath in what sounds like French. He's glad his daughter is forced to be trilingual if she wants to curse him out. He grabs the warm plate and carries it out balanced on his palm, and Masuka's daughter smiles and claps her hands as he presents the fries like a grand prize. Vince laughs and his girlfriend smiles as their daughter starts crunching down her favorite food. He drops down in the booth beside her.
"Seen much of Dexter lately? He hasn't been in much since his little woodland adventure," Angel comments, and Vince shakes his head. "He comes in and does work once a week, but he's still recovering. Hell of a scar." Amelia shushes him, and he shrugs. "Believe me, she's going to hear worse with Debra Morgan around." All three laugh.
"Speaking of Deb, I hardly have seen her either. She stops in for drinks sometimes, but that's about it. What's she got, a new boyfriend or something?" Maddy shrieks when Angel steals one of her fries, and Amelia hushes her.
"As if. She spends all her time with Dexter. Neither one of them has even mumbled a word about the opposite sex since New Year's and that Hannah McKay debacle. Can't blame the guy, now that he's dated a serial killer too. At least Debra got the comfort of knowing hers was dead."
"I wish we could say the same about that McKay bit- uh, puta." Angel saves himself just in time, and Amelia suppresses a laugh. Vince doesn't bother to. "Agreed. No woman is worth that garbage, no matter how nice her...attributes are. As far as I know, she seems to have vanished completely."
"If she's smart, she left the country. Headed down to South America or something-" He's interrupted by a clatter and the sound of breaking plates. He curses as he rises, and a mortified Auri stands over what remains of Table 6's appetizers, splattered evenly over the family, table, and the floor. "I'll be back," he promises, "I may be out of homicide, but I've still got victims," he laughs.
Deb throws the heart back into the water and charges into the bedroom, anger in her veins. "Dexter!" she yells, ready to start a fight, to demand what the hell he's sorry for. She flashes back to their conversation about their relationship being 'weird.'
She stops in her tracks. The entire bedroom is bathed in painfully bright light. The walls are covered in thick plastic, and it covers every surface, all of her furniture wrapped meticulously. There's a string running along the far wall, with paper hearts and Polaroid photos clipped along it's length with clothespins. They spell out a message that sends her heart back up to her throat.
"I've got him, bitch." The words are spaced between photos of Dexter's face. In each photo, he looks worse- his face goes from clearly unconscious, to one slice sliced, then both, the red rivulets of blood trickling down. Only in the final photo are his eyes open; they're staring straight ahead, and for once, they look like they're full of fear. She rips it off the clothesline savagely, and neat cursive spells out the rest of the message.
"Want to see him alive and not in a prison cell? One am where it all began. Be a good sister and you'll be the one to take his place." It's signed with a heart and an H.
Cold fury fills her body, straightens her spine. She questions the why, the how, but knows she has less than three hours to save him. She starts to work on her plan and frantically claws her computer out from the layers of plastic wrap on her desk. She needs to find that storage container.
I don't remember much.
I dropped Harrison off at daycare, stopped and got a sandwich at a deli. I did a little research on countries that don't extradite, because I'd gotten an idea that maybe things could be different finally, maybe I could start a few life with a woman I loved. That maybe I had a chance to walk and not run, that perhaps I could have a different kind of ending than the one I'd always accepted as inevitable.
Stupid boy, I hear Harry say. Monsters don't get happy endings. His face hovers at the edges of my consciousness.
I get back in my car after I enjoy my sandwich, and find myself regretting my tinted windows when a hand claps a rag over my mouth and nose. Before I can even put up a decent struggle, I'm out like a light... smashed like a broken light bulb, cast into darkness.
I try to put the pieces together when I wake up. I'm in an empty house, strapped to a kitchen table in the dining room. The room is dark aside from moonlight which streams in through an open set of blinds. I test my restraints, and they're tight. Inescapable. I run through a list of enemies, finding it alarmingly long, but my primary suspect walks in just as I reach the conclusion that she's who's responsible.
"Hey, Dexter," Hannah says softly, her steps measured as she approaches me. She smiles at me brilliantly. Her dark hair reminds me too much of Lila's, of Lumen's silly wig.
"Hey," I respond, a frog in my voice. I yank pointlessly at my ties. "So. Why Lumen?"
"Oh, Dexter, with your perverted sense of justice." She clucks her tongue. "You let one murderer walk off, and you send me to jail to rot? I was just... settling the balance. Unlike you, I had no evidence, so I just did what we do best." She draws her finger in a line over my cheek gently, and her other hand comes out from behind her back. I blink as she snaps a photograph with an instant camera.
"I didn't even know they still made those," I say, and look at her bloodied finger. Well, that explains why my cheeks hurt like hell. Ironic, really.
"Oh, they do. Bitch to find the film, though. It was almost harder to get the film than it was to set up your sister's house for tonight. Speaking of perversions..." her voice trails off with disgust. "Your own sister, Dexter? Honestly."
"Deb?" I ask stupidly. "What did you do to Deb?" Panic spreads through my mind, and she snaps another photo. She waves it lazily as it develops, the grey film gradually showing my fearful face and bloody cheeks.
"I redecorated," she laughs. "Now we'll learn how stupid she is. I gave her a clue or two about where we are. Will she come in guns blazing, or will she use her head? After all, I'm perfectly willing to cooperate with the police to bring you both down. Can you imagine the deal they'd cut when I hand them the most prolific serial killer in American history and his traitorous, incestuous Homicide Lieutenant sister too? She's known what you are for what, six months now?"
"And what proof do you have?" I ask, afraid of the answers.
"Oh, that's for me to know. But your pillow talk was oh so revealing, Dex. And I have an excellent memory. But I'd much rather kill you. That's the plan, in case you wondered."
"Thanks for letting me know," I drawl. I throw my gaze around the room again and something distant triggers in my memory. "I know this place," I say gently.
"I should hope so, you lived here for quite a while. Three years, from what I could determine." Hannah almost looks bored. I should have killed her when I had the chance.
"This was the house Harry brought me home to," I muse. "The rental in Sunshine Gardens. They bought the house later, when I was seven. We had to change schools in the middle of the school year."
"Imagine my delight when I found it empty," she says. "The perfect kill room! You couldn't have chosen one better yourself. Sorry about the lack of plastic; I used it elsewhere. Had to get a rise out of your sister."
"I'm sure it had the desired effect." I imagine Deb's reaction to walking into a kill room in her own house, after all this time. She may well have fainted.
I look into her beautiful, mocking face, and vow that Hannah McKay will be the last person I ever put a knife into. Assuming she doesn't do it to me first. Which, admittedly, looks overwhelmingly likely.
Four o'clock rolls around, and one by one, the parents arrive at Harrison's daycare to pick up their children. Finally, by quarter to six, only a confused-looking Harrison Morgan remains. The secretary calls his father for twentieth time, frustrated when it goes straight to voicemail. She calls Jaime Batista, and the nanny answers again, sounding just as frantic when she reports that Dexter won't answer his phone for her either, and that she's called Debra's phone as well. Of course, even Deb is unaware that Hannah has swapped out her phone for an identical model when she broke in the night before, so their calls don't light up her phone. Jaime gives them the phone number of Harrison's grandparents in Orlando, and the secretary has a tense conversation as she balances the cranky toddler on her lap. They promise that they're on their way down, and she breathes a sigh of relief, though it will be several hours before they arrive.
Debra arrives back at the station just after ten o'clock and begins her frantic search for the details of Laura Moser's murder, trying to find the container where she died. That has to be where this all began, she reasons. The place where Dexter was born in blood, the place that Harry snatched him from his rightful brother and made him hers instead.
She grabs her sidearm and an extra clip for both her service weapon and the other gun from the lock box under her desk as she half-runs through the deserted hallways, punching the elevator buttons with more force than is really needed. She speeds through traffic, weaving around slower cars, even though she still has plenty of time before midnight. She hopes to catch Hannah unaware and put this to an end once and for all.
She parks haphazardly and slips into the shipping yard through a broken gate, her gun in both hands and a pounding in her chest that feels way too fucking familiar. It might as well be New Year's again, it's a different season and for a different reason entirely, but she's still trying to stop a murder. And she'll probably end up committing one anyway.
The yard is silent as a grave, and there's no light, no sign of other vehicles or people. She tenses as she comes up on the container, eying the door. It's unlocked. She tries the handle, yanking it up and leftward, and the door creaks open like the entrance to a tomb.
It's fucking empty. There's a few faint dark brown stains on the ground, and there's a brief flash of bile in her throat when she remembers it must be Laguerta's, but other than that, nothing.
She screams her frustration into the looming darkness, and it echoes back at her. She throws the door shut again and runs back through the yard, every step clattering off the pavement, and slips undetected back though the broken gate. She jerks her car door open and slips with the keys twice before she gets the engine back on, pressing the gas petal down with a prayer. She wills her exhausted, terror-stricken brain to fucking think.
Where it all began, she repeats in her mind like a mantra. Where it all began. Where all what began? Dexter's killing? Maybe he'd told Hannah about his first kill, where he took his first life, but he never shared that kind of sick shit with her because she never wanted to know. Maybe because she wasn't a fucking serial killer. So there's no chance she'll ever find them, if that's what Hannah meant.
If she's referring to where she and Dexter met, at least she has a chance. She knows that Dexter met Hannah in her greenhouse, and it's on this side of town anyway. Plus, Hannah would have the home court advantage on her own property. It's worth a shot.
She arrives at the deserted property within ten minutes, thanks to the empty streets. And it's just that- deserted. There's no sign of Dexter or Hannah, though she does find the paper heart factory, with pieces of paper scattered across the floor of the nursery, with markers and a large pair of rusty scissors left akimbo. It looks like a demented preschooler's project amongst the shadows of neglected, dying flowers.
Deb sinks down into the driver's seat with a wave of despair which threatens to wash over her. Her own house is obviously out, and she flies by Dexter's marina on the way to his apartment. His boat is still docked where it belongs, thankfully. His apartment is dark and undisturbed. She notices with a sigh of disgust that she needs gas, so she quickly pumps and grabs a coffee from the attached all-night convenience store. As she waits for the snail-slow attendant to ring up her purchase, the cover of a magazine catches her eye. It's a beautiful condo on the cover, under the title: "Miami Rentals Weekly".
The house that she and Dexter had grown up in was painted the same hideous shade of pink, something Doris thought was lovely but looked more like Pepto to Deb.
The place where it all began...
It's on the other side of the city, so she throws a five on the counter and ignores the protesting cashier as she makes tracks back to her sedan. She forgets to close the gas door in her haste.
She sends up a prayer for the first time in forever as she wills the engine to go faster, the lights to change more quickly. Every fiber of her being is screaming for her to not be too late. It's already quarter past midnight by the time she arrives on the street, and she misses the house on the first pass because the current occupants have painted it a lovely shade of sea foam and changed the shutters.
It's clearly occupied. She knocks anyway, hoping desperately and for the first time ever that she's just happened onto the scene of a home invasion, that her quarry has the rightful owners tied up in the cellar next to Dexter. Instead, an extremely irate man answers the door in his boxers, though his mood somewhat improves when she flashes her badge.
"Have you had anything unusual happen tonight?" she demands, and he rubs his eyes.
"Aside from this? No." He seems completely unaware of her frantic tone.
"Thanks. Sorry to wake you." He slams the door in her face and turns off the porch light.
"Almost one," Hannah says, staring at her nails. She's sitting on a battered chair that looks like it matches the table I'm strapped to. "I guess your sister is as stupid as I thought she was. You're really the brains of the family, aren't you? Such a pity."
"You couldn't have been much more cryptic," I challenge. "'Where it all began?'"
"Is that inaccurate?" she says, all sweetness in her voice. "This is where your sick little relationship began, did it not? As children, you were clearly already obsessed with each other in a decidedly unhealthy manner. If she uses her head, she'll figure it out. But she won't. I imagine she's running an interesting route though Miami instead of going to the most obvious choice."
I close my eyes and try to ignore her, trying to gather up strength in my back. I buck my hips, and the table jumps an inch with the movement. I repeat the motion, but it doesn't seem to do anything to my restraints. Hannah sighs. "Seriously, Dexter? I'm going to have to use another one of my extracts on you if you keep it up."
"If you really feel the need, dear," I say sarcastically. I know she won't knock me out, she wants the satisfaction of killing me while I'm awake. I see the knife over in the corner. At least it's a big one, a rather nice piece, ceramic with a pretty turtle shell handle. I'd very much enjoy shoving it into her solar plexus right about now. For the first time in weeks, the Dark Passenger chuckles softly on my shoulder, and I know that I truly hate her, every last thing I thought I loved about her. There's a duffel bag that presumably contains the rest of her plan and tools shoved behind it, and I ponder the contents as I fantasize about watching the light go out of Hannah's eyes. She catches my wandering gaze and crosses the room, picking up the knife and weighing it in her hand. The edge glitters in the scattered light through the blinds, and she pricks the end of her finger with the triangular point. A tiny drip of blood blossoms from the wound, and she sticks the digit in my mouth, forcing me to taste her.
She screams when I bite down hard on it, breaking the bone. What can I say...sometimes blood sets my teeth on edge. Hannah retreats to her chair to sulk and watch the clock. "That was stupid of you," she snarls as she nurses her injured finger. The broken joint forces it to hang limply, and it's on her dominant hand, too. Good. She'll lose use of it without a doctor's attention. I hope it rots off her fucking hand.
She drives. She just drives, a sinking feeling in her chest, defeated. She has no idea where Dexter is going to die. He's going to die, just like everyone else she's loved. She's the goddamn angel of death. But now it will be worse, because he is her whole life and he will be gone and goddamned Hannah McKay will be the one who took him away.
Debra really knows she's losing her mind, because suddenly she sees Harry. He just pops into her head like a ghost. The memory of throwing a ball with Dexter, between the three of them. They were still small, and kept losing it over the fence. Every time she threw it too far, Harry would climb over the picket fence obligingly, with a smile on his face, and Dex looked bored...
The fence. That fence didn't exist at the pink house... that fence was at the first house, the house she barely remembered... the goddamn rental.
The place where it all began.
She wishes she could slow time. She has ten minutes to make a fifteen minute drive. She takes the turns too fast and almost hits someone when she runs a red light, and she's pretty sure she runs over an opossum, but she sees the cheerful sign announcing the neighborhood just as the clock ticks past one. Dexter's SUV is parked in the driveway; a "FOR RENT" sign hangs from a post in the front yard, fenced with the picket fence. The house is dark, but that means nothing.
She kills her headlights before she turns into the drive, and almost hits his car in her haste to park. She leaves the engine running and the door open as she creeps up the driveway, gun drawn, and slinks up the steps in a crouch. She can hear his voice and Hannah's, so she knows he is still alive.
She gathers every ounce of strength in her body, directs it toward her legs, and kicks open the door.