Oh crikey… I genuinely thought I had completed and uploaded everything… Turns out I was wrong… I lost my login details for this, for my old email, I couldn't find the last few chapters ANYWHERE, so I've had to rewrite. I am so, so sorry! On the bright side, it is close to The End… Just a little short one, sorry. Written on nights, so apologies for rubbishness x x
Dexter's head is swimming when he awakes. He casts his eyes back and forth, squinting as he tries to focus. Where is he? What happened? He searches his mind, but there's nothing. The Dark Passenger is silent.
Dexter is lying down. Shit. He can't move his arms or legs. They're restrained. Shit, shit. Dexter tugs at the restraints and squirms as much as he's able to. His mind spins with possibilities. He recognizes the plastic surroundings as his own work, and tries to scrape at the memories of whom - or what, his mind adds - he'd been entertaining most recently. Drips and drabs. He quits moving and closes his eyes. In a strange way, it would be a poetic ending for Dexter, being killed on his own Table, in his own Kill Room. He is fully expecting a surprise visitor. But who?
Perhaps he falls back to sleep, or at the very least, he rests a while. Things begin to come back to him in fragments, but it's like looking through porridge trying to resurface the memories. He remembers the bodies first. Hearts torn out. Silver bullets. He gets the feeling of just general weirdness. Especially around… Them. The Dark Passenger is there, but it's holding back. It feels like it's in a cage, reaching out and slashing its claws into the air. Something has frightened it. Something big and bad and dark; dark enough to scare The Passenger. A whisper; so faint, it's almost incomprehensible. The boys. "Just tell me," Dexter speaks back. He remembers blue eyes. More? Green eyes. It's like trying to access his memories through another dimension. Dexter's eyes snap open. And if he didn't know better, he would think he can suddenly move. He sits. Nothing is holding him down. Had it been his imagination? There's no sign of anything. His trolley sits, apparently untouched, except… Swinging his legs around and stretching out his muscles, Dexter gingerly makes his way across the room to his tray of toys. They're all laid out perfectly. Except one. He lifts it, and watches as the blood rolls down the blade and collects at the hilt. Instinctively, Dexter touches his own chest and looks down. It's not his blood. He turns to the empty table. There's a puddle of blood right about where a chest should have been. Dexter looks away, and sees the roll of black bags still sitting, awaiting their purpose. No neatly stacked parcels anywhere in the room. He must have set up the kill room for someone but who? What matters now, is cleaning up the evidence of his latest… escapade.
Dexter checks his phone cursively, the battery is almost flat. It's a little after midnight. The last thing he remembers clearly is driving. Hunting. He was following someone.
Dean winks suggestively at his brother, grinning around a mouthful of pancake. "You know what I'm saying?"
Sam rubs his face, exasperated. "You- You think Grace has been having an affair with Mr. Meaty Chunks and her lawyer?"
Dean shrugs, chewing loudly. Sam winces slightly, but ignores his brother's uncouth behavior. "Do you think that's why they were going through the divorce? She'd been playing away from home?"
Dean shrugs, pausing to take a sip of his coffee before he replies. "I don't know. Werewolves like to gank people who have hurt them."
"It would make sense, I suppose," Sam momentarily drifts away, fixes his brother with a questioning stare as he leans forward, then he looks to the pen and paper in his hand and begins jotting things down enthusiastically. Dean watches from across the room as he finishes his pancake. He's all too familiar with the visual cues of his brother having a eureka moment, so he sits, poised and waiting. "Viktor finds out that Grace is having an affair and files for divorce, Grace starts boning her lawyer - Jayden - who eliminates Luis from the running, Jayden is the guy we took out in the warehouse…" He trails off and curses quietly. "But why would he kill Viktor? He's not a threat any more, and he hasn't wronged him, as such," He looks to Dean, "Unless he's not the only werewolf."
The brothers' new digs are slightly more upscale than their usual haunts, with the luxury of matching curtains and bed sets, and distinctly lacking in the usual unpleasant stains and aromas to which they had grown accustomed over the years. Not to mention the attached parking garage that Baby was currently calling home. Away from the eyes of prying blood spatter analysts and their Detective sister, for instance.
"Where the hell is Cas?" Dean has moved across to the hotel window, and he moves the curtains aside to peer out.
Sam shrugs dismissively. "Man, I don't know. I haven't heard from him since he went out on his little mission." The brothers share a look. "Do you think it worked?"
Dean crosses the room, flicking open the door of the refrigerator and retrieving two bottles of beer. He takes a seat at the table across from his brother and slides a bottle to him.
"I mean, he's still a bit… whacked out." A few moments pass, with Sam engrossed in his laptop and note taking.
"Have we got an address for Grace?" Dean slides around next to his brother.
There is something in the sound of the waves, lapping gently at the side of the boat, rocking it rhythmically. The tranquillity gives him time to think, to be himself, without the pretences, the forced smiles, the fitting in, the being human. It's just what he needs, his time to recharge.
Dexter leans on the side of the Slice of Life, gazing in to the murky water. He still feels off-kilter. There is a nagging feeling in the back of his mind. His Passenger is still quiet. His mind keeps going over his day; parts are still hazy. He keeps coming back to The Table; finding himself tied up on it… but, how? Who had been on there before Dexter himself? He can't think anything beyond eyes. Blue eyes. And a trench coat? Dexter shakes his head, and drops it down to rest on the cool grab rail around the front of the boat, jutting out his rear behind him.
"Leave it alone, Dex," It's Harry's voice. It almost takes him by surprise. "You are playing with forces you don't understand."
Raising his head to look at the mirage of his dead adoptive father, Dexter raises an eyebrow and echoes, "'Forces'?"
Harry's face is set grim. He stays quiet for a while, turning away to stare awhile over the serene waters. His imaginary hands hold on to the side of the boat, going white at the knuckles. "There's a whole other world out there, Dex. Things that go bump in the night."
Dexter blinks, and a moment later, his lips quirk. "Dad, I'm a thing that goes bump in the night."
Harry turns to face Dexter, and stares him down. "Tell me what you remember,"
Dexter sucks in a breath of air, and suddenly he feels unsteady. He reaches out a hand to catch his balance,
"It isn't the first time, is it?" Harry presses. "How did you get home that night you followed them?" Somehow, he seems to grow. "This is too dangerous, Dexter – they are too dangerous."
Dexter rakes a hand through his hair, eyes looking everywhere but at his father. He doesn't speak, but he doesn't need to.
"You don't remember who they are." Harry isn't asking. He takes a step forwards, close enough that Dexter would be able to feel his body heat, if he were really there. "The brothers – they aren't like the people you are used to, and the other one…" He doesn't finish the sentence.
Dexter lets out a laugh. It is a hard, cold sound, devoid of humor, and he turns square on to Harry before he speaks. "What, are you going to tell me they've got magical powers or something? Dad-"
He is cut off by his father's voice, raised, sharp as the blade of a knife. "He is the reason you don't remember. He did something to you-" Harry's hands gesticulate wildly, animating his words, and he cuts off, huffing in frustration. The truth is, even Harry doesn't truly understand who, or what, they are.
"They're just people, Dad. Like you and me- or, me… kind of, at least." Dexter turns his gaze out over the stygian blackness of the ocean around him, watching as the light from the moon dances across the gentle ripples.
"If they're just people," Harry's voice is low in Dexter's ear; soft but commanding. "Then what happened to his body after you stabbed him through the heart?"
Feeling all of a sudden unsteady, Dexter grips on to the rail, his heart thrumming, his chest burning and squeezing in on itself. He drops his head down on to the cool metal and closes his eyes. His memory is still foggy, but one thought comes to his head, crystal clear. That dark chuckling sounds in the recesses of his mind, longing to be satiated.
It has to happen. Again and again. And it has to happen… Tonight.