Non Sequitur
Setting: "That Night, a Forest Grew"
A/N: This is the last chapter for 2.07, and with it I'm gonna go on a brief hiatus. 2.08 is done, but with this fic I like being at least a whole episode ahead of what I'm posting in case I need to make changes, so for now those chapters aren't going up.
At any rate, thanks for reading, and hopefully I'll be back to regular posts in about a month or so.
I fluff my hair as I walk out of the bathroom for the kitchen, glancing down the hall as I go. Still no sign of Dexter.
Exhaling irritably, I head to the counter to check my phone. Flip it open, closed again. The fucker still hasn't called me back.
I debate leaving him a second message, but decide not to. Set my phone down.
When I left the station I came straight to the apartment looking for him, but he wasn't here. After sitting around with my thumb up my ass for twenty minutes, I changed, drove over to Bay Harbor, parked as close as I could get to the beach, and took a long run along the water, past a hundred umbrellas and sun-tanning snow birds. As I ran I thought about Doakes, Moser, the Butcher and Lundy's revelation, Lundy himself, Lundy and me, and, eventually, nothing much at all. I was almost down to SoBe when I finally turned around. By the time I made it back to my car I felt somewhat cleansed or, at the least, totally fucking exhausted.
It was only as I started up the car to go that I realized this was the first time I've been able to be so close to the water without having a flash back. My satisfaction over that was slightly dampened when I also realized Dexter hadn't called me back, and when I came back here to find him still absent. Half of me wonders if I shouldn't have just stayed at work, but, then again, I was close to explosion when I left, so it was probably for the best.
I glance at the oven clock. It's almost six.
Consider calling him again. Don't.
Instead I grab the other half of the chicken tender sub I picked up at Publix on the way back from my run, bring it and a water bottle to the couch, plop down. Unfold the paper and promptly drip some sauce onto my knee.
I wipe it off with a napkin out of the wad that was thrown into the plastic bag, take a bite of the sub. Now that I've cooled off I'm quickly being swept back into my thoughts. Replaying the kiss in slo-mo. Going over what I said.
So I did it. It's done. Less than 24 hours after dumping Gabriel, I kissed Lundy, and he kissed me back. I don't know where we're going from here, if we even are going anywhere. When we finished our lunch he asked me about Gabriel, and I told him we broke up, but didn't go into any more detail than that. I'm sure though from the way he looked at me that he read between the lines.
We didn't say much else to each other on the way back from the Tribune, and, clearly, I didn't have the chance to talk to him after work about it either. I'm not sure what I want to say. I know I want to be with him, but even opening the door this far is dangerous enough.
I crumple the empty wrapper, shove it back in the plastic bag, throw that on the table. Follow it with my feet.
Then again, it's not like my reputation can really get much worse.
I drink some water, glance without interest at the TV. Drink some more.
There's just an incredible tenderness I feel for Lundy, something like gratefulness, but sweeter. For keeping me on this case, for keeping me at least some percentage sane and stable. When I'm with him I don't have to flee from every quiet moment. I feel safe and assured, like 14 weeks ago I wasn't dragged screaming from a trunk to the garage where I was so nearly murdered. He makes me feel like my survival wasn't some cosmic mistake, like I'm not just what Moser made of me. What he left of me.
I drain the bottle, toss it next to the bag. It bounces off the table and rolls to the floor.
And the touchy-feely shit aside, when it comes down to it I'm just attracted to him. Really, really.
Really.
Fuck…
My thoughts are bisected by the sound of keys bumping against wood, and before the lock's even turned I'm on my feet. Fucking finally, he's home.
It occurs to me as the door opens unhindered that I forgot to put the chain on, but the thought falls away quickly as Dexter comes in.
"So you're not dead," I say, walking over to him.
"No, I'm fine," he says. "Sorry, I didn't have the chance to call you back."
I eyeball him, crossing my arms. From what I can see he looks perfectly fine, which half surprises me, half relieves me. Considering how Doakes is built, I was expecting him to look like he'd had the shit kicked out of him.
But, I realize suddenly, he fucking reeks like a campfire.
"I called you hours ago," I say. "What do you mean you didn't have time? And why do you smell like a fucking campfire?"
He glances behind him, and I have this weird, premonitory feeling that something terrible is about to happen, even before he starts talking. Because he's left the door open. "I was at Cody's presentation when Lila called me. There was a fire at her place…"
He trails off as the pale skank in question finally walks in behind him, a bag in hand.
Oh fuck no.
"Hello, Debra," she says stiffly, yet with an air of satisfaction. Like she's a snake with a fat, dead mouse in her coils.
I look from her to the mouse in question. Several things pop into my head, and I don't know which one to voice, so I swallow all of them. "Can I speak to you for a minute?" I say finally. Add, "Privately."
Lila flashes a simpering smile as she curls her arm around my brother's elbow. "Anything you want to say to Dexter, you can say in front of me."
I snort, open my mouth to say the first thing that comes to mind.
"No," Dexter interrupts. "It's fine. Lila, why don't you put your stuff down in the bedroom while Deb and I talk outside?"
She narrows her eyes as she looks at me, and I feel fairly certain that if looks could kill, a lightning bolt would've just sundered the roof and immolated me to ash. Then she looks at my brother, reaffixing that simpering smile to her face. "Okay, luv," she purrs.
She de-links her arm, but kisses him territorially before sauntering into the bedroom, and I don't bother to keep watching her. I think if my eyes rolled back any farther they'd pop out the other end of my skull.
And meanwhile my idiot brother seems utterly oblivious to what she was doing. "Come on," he says to me, grabbing my elbow and steering me outside. He shuts the door behind us.
"Really?" I explode, unable to help myself. "You traded Rita and those kids for that?"
"I don't remember asking for your opinion on my love life, Deb," he says.
"Well, too fucking bad, you're getting it anyway."
He just looks at me. "What did you want to ask me?"
It takes me a second to remember. Now it seems suddenly, totally ridiculous that I spent most of my time since I left the station being worried about him. "What the fuck do you think?" I ask. "What happened between you and Doakes?"
"Oh," he says, as if somehow surprised by the question. "Honestly, I don't know. He just jumped me."
"He just jumped you?" I repeat. "Just out of the fucking blue?"
"Pretty much." He shrugs, his hands finding his pockets.
I study him, finally notice a cut on his forehead that wasn't there this morning. Probably a souvenir from Doakes. "You really expect me to believe that?" I ask after a beat.
"That's what happened."
This is something that drives me nuts about him. He's completely fucking unreadable, no matter the situation, no matter the scale of the lie. In this case I can't tell if he's full of shit or not, but it just doesn't make sense to me that there isn't more to this. I can't see Doakes going after him for no reason at all. Then again, I still can't figure out why Doakes has been fixated on Dexter to begin with.
So I change tacks. "What the fuck is his problem with you anyway?"
"I don't know." Another shrug. But this time I'm sure he's lying.
"Don't feed me that shit," I say. "This all seems to have started that night, or around then, when I was missing." I search his eyes, trying to find some kernel of something there. "I've never been able to understand why he would think you could possibly have had anything to do with what happened to me."
"I don't either." He seems to sense my retort, continues hastily, "When I realized what happened to you, when I realized who Rudy was, I tried everything I could to find you. I didn't stay with the team. I didn't tell anyone Rudy called me to that house. I just went by myself."
It fucking weirds me out to hear him using the pseudonym. "But why would that have put you anywhere near Doakes' radar?" I ask.
"If I knew that, I would've cleared it up a long time ago."
I struggle to come up with a response. None of it makes sense. Dexter taking that call and going up to that house secretly was the stupidest thing he could've done, and he should've known better, but it's the only reason I'm alive. Miami Metro would've gotten there seconds too late.
"Doakes has always had it out for me," he fills my silence. "Maybe it was just the final straw. Or maybe—" he breaks off, glances away.
"What?" I prompt, when he doesn't finish his thought.
He looks back at me, shrugs again. "Maybe he wanted to be the one to rescue you."
I pause, amazed by the change in course. I don't… "What?" I say.
"Don't tell me you never noticed?"
I feel warm suddenly, and not just because it's a fucking hot house out here. "Notice what?"
"That he's got a thing for you."
I stare at him. "What?" I say again, stupidly. Doakes? "Are you serious?"
But of course he is. I feel utterly flabbergasted as he nods.
"You think this is about him wanting to have been a fucking knight in shining armor?" I ask.
"It's the only thing I can come up with."
I don't know what to say. Finally, "Are we in fucking kindergarten here?" I ask. As he brings the uber skank home. As I dump Gabriel for my equally inappropriate crush.
"You asked what I thought."
I open my mouth, but whatever I was going to say doesn't come. I have no response to that. It doesn't make any sense, but the whole situation doesn't make sense anyway.
"Are you okay?" I ask finally, because I have no desire to pursue this line of questioning anymore.
"I'm fine. Maybe a little dented in a couple places, but…" He flashes a small smile, doesn't finish the statement.
How is he so okay with all this?
"Good." I nod. Feeling deflated and, somehow, defeated, I tuck my hair back. Exhale slowly.
"I should go back inside." He pauses. "Will you be able to play nice?"
I snort. "What do you think?"
"Yeah, that's about what I expected."
I think about telling him about that place on Harding, but I still haven't heard back from Yolanda Wilkes, the apartment manager. I don't want to tell him I'll be out soon if I'm not sure I've got the place.
He reaches for the door. "You coming in?"
"In a minute," I say.
He nods. "See you inside then."
And then he opens the door and goes in, shuts it with a quiet click.
Sighing, I go over to the railing, lean my forearms against it. Wish I had a beer or something. Fuck do I not want to go in there. I'd almost rather pitch a tent out here on the walkway than have to make nicey nice with Amy Winehouse's FAS disordered second cousin.
I look down at the pool. My thoughts slide left.
Doakes? Is Dexter serious? How could I have never noticed that?
Does he really believe something so stupid and petty is the source of all this? Or, like he said, was it just the last straw? It's not like they haven't been openly antagonistic long before I joined Homicide. I remember the tension when I used to occasionally visit my brother back when I was in Vice.
I don't know. I'm done. I give up trying to make sense of it. I don't think it ever will. And if it what LaGuerta said is true, it doesn't matter anyway. There's not a snowball's chance in hell Doakes will be able to stay in Homicide after this, especially with those two shootings on his back. I'd be surprised if he keeps his job at all. At this point it's probably best we all just move on, especially since Dexter, for whatever reason, doesn't seem to give a shit.
I glance back. I think even through the walls I can hear Lila's annoying-ass, nasally fucking voice.
A fire in her place he said? Just taking one look at that crazy bitch it wouldn't surprise me at all if she set it herself.
Rolling my eyes, I turn back, resettle against the railing. I have a feeling I'm going to be standing here awhile longer.
