Chapter Four:
A Computation of Consequences
There's a room in a hotel in New York City
That shares our fate and deserves our pity
Poppy Moser can feel fear. She doesn't, not the way everyone else does, but she can. She thought that was an important distinction to make.
It was a widespread fallacy that those running wild underneath the Antisocial banner were incapable of fear, one first put forward in the 1950's and never really challenged afterwards. When psychopaths and those with ASPD have had parts of their brains scanned in charming little research endeavours recently, there wasn't much difference to be found between ASPD and non-ASPD processes of fear in the brain. That said, the parts of the brain that dealt with detecting threats was wholly impaired in ASPD. As a result, those suffering from the disorder didn't know they should be feeling fear most often than not, and so they don't.
You can't press a button you didn't know existed and expected the button to do anything on its own.
What does that mean exactly, you might ask?
ASPD's can't weigh the risk and reward balance, there was no risk, not to them, and so everything was a reward if you were willing to get your hands dirty enough. They couldn't automatically detect danger like everyone else, fear doesn't register the way it did in a neurotypical.
Take a mugging for example. If someone pulled a gun on a neurotypical in an alley way and demanded their wallet the chances were they'd inevitably feel fear, one of the bodies automatic responses would enact, fight, flight or freeze. Somewhere in that neurotypical brain of theirs a connection has been made, an association between the gun pointed at them with danger, without conscious thought needed, so fear then becomes a response that brain has fired off in reaction to the threat.
This doesn't happen in a sociopath's brain. They don't make that connection, that association, that danger detection, and therefore, they don't feel the automatic response of fear. Theoretically, they can feel fear as much as the next person, but its kind of like a video game, emotions, for the sociopath, a feature that hasn't been programmed properly and the player has no way of excessing it.
Fear was behind a paywall the sociopath was too stingy to cough up.
That's not to say a sociopath couldn't see a threat, it was merely not an automatic response to unsafe stimuli. They have to logically think it out, and that was if they had the foresight to do so at all. A gun could mean a shot. A shot could mean pain. Pain could mean death. Oh, that doesn't sound too pleasant.
Fear, for Poppy Moser, was a clinically cool computation of consequences she had to consciously conceive.
Poppy Moser had once heard her muggle colleague, David Fanshaw, describe fear once over a cold beer. He had been tracking down a cannibal in Baltimore. The cannibal had been tipped off about time running out when he spotted the car following him one morning, and suspecting the culprit of bolting, David had moved in gun cocked. Back-up hadn't been close enough, or prepared enough, to get there fast enough. It's never enough.
He had to make the grab himself. The cannibal had turned, taken a bite out his arm, nearly got the gun out of David's and into his own in the ensuing struggle. David had said, with a chuckle, that it had felt as teeth sunk into bruised flesh that he'd nearly shit out his own heart in fear.
That sounded… Unpleasant to Poppy. Unpleasant and a little bit like a medical marvel.
Surely fear couldn't be so… Visceral?
Maybe.
Poppy's emotions were… Flat, more puddle than pond. Most people with ASPD endured the same. A dulling of the emotive sensations. Poppy couldn't do intricate emotions, not like others. Anger, joy, sadness, she feels those, perhaps not as much and not quite like anyone else, but she does in her own way.
Once, while working out in the gym, she had gotten sweaty palms and her breath had been rapid.
Was that what fear felt like?
Poppy shook her head.
Complex emotions? Grief? Disappointment? Amusement? Loyalty? Those were out of her reach, and they sounded utterly alien to her. A far off shore on the horizon she can't quite see from her own isolated island.
She thinks she might understand loyalty most, out of all the others she had heard described. If she has put so much effort to construct an alliance between her and someone else, although she couldn't think of a reason she ever would do so, it would not only be superfluous to let that effort slide but a waste. If she ever did put so much energy and work into something outside herself, then the prize must have been worth it, it meant it was hers, and if something was hers it was hers, why ever would she let that go?
Poppy doesn't understand it. Her therapist, the obliviated sod, had once told her that was possessiveness and not loyalty. Were they different emotions to neurotypicals? What was the difference?
Empathy. Yuck.
Yeah, her therapist had said that too, minus the gag.
Poppy wonders how the others, the Normals, did it, how they had so much feeling all the time every time, and still managed to somehow factor in others' emotions for themselves.
Didn't they get whiplash? Didn't it make them tired? How did they have time for anything else but a mental breakdown?
Poppy doesn't know precisely, as she doesn't know what fear feels like, but she does know a threat when it comes flinging at her face in a candy wrapper.
The Ice Truck Killer had left her a boon. He had broken into her hotel room, sullied her things, perhaps had been waiting in the lobby for her to leave after dropping off her things, so he could get the job done quick and get out in time before she arrived back at night. He knew she was coming, and he knew enough of her to know where she would go, what she would do, how she would find his message. He knew what she was and what she did, perhaps not her magic, those Blood Pops had once been… Muggles, and Poppy had never used magic against them-
Unfair game. Give them a chance. Makes the blood sweeter when they inevitably fail.
So maybe he didn't know she was a witch-
But he sure knew she was a killer, and that alone was enough to sign his death warrant. It had to be. She couldn't risk him informing anyone, the Metro, the BAU, the FBI, and mucking up this life she had spent so long and so much energy fashioning. She was… Comfortable here. It was hers. Pluck his eyes so he don't see. Rip his tongue so he can't speak. Slice his ears so he don't hear, and Taste. That. FEAR.
The timer had been hit, the board set, and now Poppy was on her own square in a chess game of two-
Three! One. Two. Three! Can't forget the one he's talking to!
Three. Both faceless. Nameless. Graceless.
Those first three victims, the prostitutes, those had not been for her. The Blood Pops, yes, but the bodies?
No.
Ice-guy was talking to two at the same time? Another killer? Is that what links them? Their taste for blood!
But why? Why chance, so publicly, outing himself? So he could say hello fellow associates? How's it hanging? Limply, I hope. Want to start a serial killer convention?
It doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense. Why was he doing this? Now? With them?
What was the connection?
Poppy, again, doesn't know… But she does have a sign. A clue that, after cleaning up her inn room and then changing hotels to something across city by the beach, the Marina View Hotel room 103, somewhere that the Ice Truck Killer would take some time to discover should he decide to leave something dead at her door like a cat again, and the morning after, Poppy finds herself traipsing into the police station again at the crack of dawn.
She finds the room she's after easily enough, finds a chair and sits and waits and projects partially shaped plans into the whiteboard of her mind.
This was dicey, what she was about to do next. Many things could go wrong. This might not be her smartest move, but it sure was impulsive. Naughty girl. Always putting your fingers in the cookie jar.
Poppy's always had trouble stemming that.
Nevertheless, she thinks, if she gave too much away to the person she was laying in wait for, garners some suspicion for what she is about to ask, this is, in the end, her fastest route to answers. That might be worth a stinky side-eye, but she can't be too sure, can never really be too sure what a risk really meant, what danger truly was, what fear she should be feeling.
Like the greedy girl she was, Poppy just wants her reward.
If she called up her lab over in Quantico she would have to send her presents over, that would take time and answers to inevitable questions she wasn't willing to give, wait more for the results, more time wasted sitting around on her arse, and by then the Ice Truck Killer could move again, prod her again, push-
It's our turn to move! That's how the game goes!
Poppy decided this might be her only choice at the moment, she does have resources here, she needs to know for definite, and if shit hits the fan she could always start casting obliviate on the person she was waiting for and go it alone.
Magic… the wonderful get out of jail free card that it was.
Obviously, she could use said magic to test the samples herself, but that was-
CHEATING! DIRTY, DIRTY CHEATER! WRONG! UNEARNED! DIRTY!
The Ice Truck Killer was clearly muggle, no whiff or hint of magic in his kills or in his messages, in the Blood Pops. She would have sensed it, sniffed it out straight away, thrashed at it. Poppy refused to use magic against muggles. Rebuffed and denied. She was a killer, yes, but she wasn't unfair.
She had some standards.
The door handle to the small, cramped office turns, rattling, swinging open.
Dexter Morgan stood in the crux, work bag in hand, blinking at Poppy sitting in his spinning chair.
I don't want to remember it all
The promises I made if you just hold on
Dexter Morgan was in a pink shirt that day, and instantly Poppy doesn't like it. Wants it off. Wants it gone. She's never liked pink. It reminds her of inflamed flesh, swollen joints, skin too selfish to let the blood out to play. It's a weak, diluted, pitiful colour.
Just wear red.
Still, in pink or not, Poppy needs this moment to go well, needs herself to be good, so she grits her teeth, disregards the unexpected whizzing whoop of her Friend at the sight of Dexter Morgan, and she grins.
"A little birdie told me you're the blood-guy of this place?"
Dexter sluggishly moved into the room, as if he was debating whether to enter or run, come closer or jump further away, a common reaction to Poppy, finally settling on the former as he blindly shut the door behind him.
"I think the correct term is blood splatter specialist."
He has a dry voice, Poppy noted. Wry and rasping and even toned. Its-
Nice… As far as voices go, of course.
Poppy kicked her own leg out, spinning his chair she had stolen, a tiny triumph, a little nibble for her wicked ways, watching the room spin with her mind, the weight in her leather jacket pocket thick and exhilarating and pinning her down deep into the chair. She wants to pat at it and pull it out, hold it close and go see, see, see look what I have! Isn't it pretty!?
But Poppy was not a child, never got to be one of those, and this wasn't some seashell she had found on the beach, and she doubts Dexter fuckin' Morgan with his loafers would find the same stuff she finds pretty.
"Well, you do more than simply assess blood splatter, yeah?"
Dexter drops his bag down by his feet, by his desk, putting his own hands into his slacks pockets. Poppy ponders, lazily, what surprises he had in there, in the dark, in his hands. Crack his skull open and use a silly straw to sip at his secrets like sangria.
"Yes, I do more."
Poppy stopped spinning on the chair with a jolt and a slap of her boots, halting ahead at Dexter, settling the man with a curious look. She has that desire again when she has him in full, gloriously-gory view. That terrible, awful, lock-jaw strong urge. The one to hold, and the one to kill until both, so solid and intense, concrete slurry in her veins, blend together into something else wet and warm and unnameable.
She's never felt that way before.
Poppy was not sure she liked it.
She shook it off, despite her Friend whining and wailing under its throes.
"Good. I have a favour I need doing."
Dexter cocked a gingery sweetened brow, but Poppy scoffs, continuing.
"And more importantly, I may need you to keep it out from under the Lieutenants and the Metro's noses-… For a little while at least. Until I have a bigger mental picture to go on."
He didn't need to know Poppy wasn't planning on letting the Metro, or anyone else, know the truth. As soon as she had the results in, the ones she was using Dexter Morgan to get, she'd obliviate the bastard from ever knowing he had sent off for them, and then delete all his emails.
Might even steal his laptop just for shits and giggles.
Done.
Dusted.
Dexter, however, seemed to perk up at this turn, a certain tick by his eye fighting an expansion, a-
A part-pressed smile.
Curious! See!
Poppy does see, knows not many people liked it when she asked them to lie for her, least of all begin wagging their metaphysical tails.
"What would this clandestine favour be that needs such secrecy that you've ambushed me so early in the morning?"
Or, possibly, being stuck in this boxy four walls nine hours a day combing over data analysis on blood splatters, pictures of which hanging all over his office that Poppy was trying so hard not to look at, not to trigger, made Dexter a dull boy, and he was merely looking for a bit of excitement. The Q finally getting to be James Bond for a few hours.
What did either reason mean to her, truly?
Nothing if she got what she wanted.
Poppy dived into her leather jacket, to the pocket hoarded inside, grabbed the plastic baggie she had buried there, and threw it at Dexter by the door. He deftly catches it.
Sports maybe? A history of something involving fast reflexes that have been honed. Swift impulses made sharp.
Dexter held the bag up and into the light above them, looking at the three poppy printed lollipops bouncing in the see-through bag.
"Found these at the crime scenes yesterday. One in Sheri Taylor's bleachers, another in a fountain slab crack, and the last in the drain of the pool; Forensics must have missed them when they swept the places."
Dexter lowers the baggie of goods, her goods, her pretty, pretty presents, but Poppy watched those same fingers flex along the plastic. She wonders if he feels as suddenly prickly and stiff as she does.
Most likely just confused.
"And you would need a blood splatter specialist to test these because-"
Poppy sharply cut over, once again spinning in her chair. It made the blood splatter's on the wall appear as if they were in movement, bright red comets darting across a dead and dark sky.
"Because I'm pretty sure our ingenious ice-man left them on scene, and each one is made from the victim's blood. I'm a behavioural analyst myself, not a lab jockey, hence why I need a pair of expert hands to cross my T's and dot my I's. I heard you're the best around here."
After swopping hotel rooms yesterday, Poppy had spent the evening, and far into the twilight hours, backtracking herself through the Ice Truck Killer's murders, cutting apart the scenes to see-
To see each and every one had a lollipop, just for her, waiting in the moonlight.
Someone's been a busy boy, just as you're being naughty.
Poppy heard the tell-tale sign of plastic stretching, stops her spinning, and observed Dexter's hands wringing deeper into the bag. He has strong fingers, she thought. Good for snapping necks. her Friend needlessly adds.
"That doesn't make sense. That's not how he-… Works."
It is, Poppy wanted to say, but the message wasn't left for you or Metro. It wasn't for player three, either. It was left for me.
"Well he does now."
Dexter gave Poppy a look she couldn't decipher, a crisp, tight-fisted look.
"And you want to keep this out of Laguerta's radar because?"
Because having one person know and see me is enough.
Poppy would eventually have to explain what these lollipops mean, and she's so focused on the game ahead, on tracking the Ice Truck Killer down now that he had blown the whistle, that she doesn't have an excuse lined up for the lollipops yet.
She needs time to set the stage, create the play, and put the actors where they needed to be.
She needs a fall guy so when we catch our sweet-treat we can have him to ourselves, and the Metro can have the decoy. The ol' bait and switch.
Again, Poppy said none of this, instead she paints on a bashful smile and a reticent shrug, and she hopes Dexter Morgan can't see the fever still flooding her eye.
"I don't want to get their hopes up until I figure this out. This might be our big break."
Our big break.
One word could do so much, Poppy had noticed. Ours, you see, we can catch them, we can do this, the reward will be ours, together-
The whole thing sort of makes her feel nauseous. Awkwardly… bare. There's nothing ours about this. This was-
My game. My killer. My riddle. Mine! Everything is mine. We keep it. We take it. We have it-
But if one word could get her what she needs, what she wants-
Poppy's done much, much worse.
Dexter, on the other hand, didn't want to play ball, shaking his head.
"It's against regulations for me to purposefully conceal evidence-"
Poppy clapped and stood, interrupting the obvious ensuing tirade about code, regulations and laws, tedious, dreary, annoying things, sure to come, disrupting the chance for Dexter Morgan to talk himself out of doing what she wanted, and wouldn't that be a crying shame.
Don't give him time. Rush him. Blow it off. Get him to say yes before he can think of the consequences.
"Just for a little while? Come on, live on the wild side! Apparently we have blood lollipops over here. What do you say? Just a little time. That's all I need. It's not much to ask for, is it?"
Dexter does crack a small smile at this, a small thing, a half-forgotten thing, ostensibly against his own desire as Poppy watched him stomp it back down again before it could fully rest upon his face.
Eventually, however, he sighed, and Poppy knew she had him.
Of course she did.
"I can have a match done today. We should have the results by the evening… Maybe tomorrow morning at a push."
We? A bit like our isn't it? Poppy hoped, for the forensics' sake, he hadn't used his turn of phrase as she had used hers.
Maybe she didn't have him at all.
Wasn't that disconcerting? Electrifying?
Dexter marched away from the door, heading for his desk, and Poppy side-stepped his progress, moving out of the way. Her Friend snarled at that, barks at the back of her coffee bitter mind, jeering at being forced to do anything at all-
And then Dexter Morgan passes by, and he brought a whiff of the beach with him, driftwood and salt and something briny and deep, and it shuts right up.
What the hell is your problem recently?
Her Friend doesn't answer, it never does when she wants it to, the sour-sally that it is, and instead almost… Coos.
Circe knows what that means.
Poppy maintains the smile on her face snugly, moving for the door, away from-
Away from whatever this was.
"Great. Remember, this is our little secret for now. No blabbing."
Dexter was by his desk, his laptop, tapping away at keys by the time Poppy breached the door and glanced back.
He's frowning and looking right at her and that-
That…
Burns? Aches? Make's her stomach do a fluttery head-dive plummet to the floor and jump back up to her throat she doesn't quite like.
What was that? Did she have the stomach flu?
"Aren't you going to stay and wait for the results?"
He appeared put out by his own question, embarrassed maybe to be asking her anything at all, maybe as perplexed as Poppy felt by it.
Her stomach does the loop-de-loop again.
She really shouldn't have had three morning burritos at five am on a sleepless belly.
"I'll be back by then. I need to go visit-… Someone. I've left my number at your desk on the yellow memo pad. Call me if something crops up or the results come in early."
Dexter, thankfully, doesn't ask her who she's off to 'visit', and Poppy made a quick, but perhaps not inconspicuous, getaway into the precincts main floor, heading for the elevator and away from the woozy feeling stirring her insides. She thinks he watches her go through the blinds of his window, but she can't be a hundred percent sure without looking back herself to check.
Poppy doesn't want to do that. Poppy never wants to look backwards. That's where trouble slumbered.
No, looking ahead was far better. Looking ahead meant seeing three lollipops for the three victims and… Well, Tony Tucci might just have another sweet treat for a sweet-toothed girl waiting for her too.
I just need enough of you to dull the pain
Just to get me through the night 'til we're twins again
Poppy Moser was the picture of compassion standing at the end of the hospital bed, scarred hands curled around bottom railing. Kindness in the gentle slope of her half-lidded eye, sympathy nipping at the fringes of her face, and a caring-soft smile to tie it all together.
Poppy should know what she looked like standing there, she had spent the last half hour practicing just this look in the ground floor bathroom of the hospital.
Tony Tucci smiled back from the pile of pillows plumping him up. He was a big man, even laying down, even missing parts of himself, a massive bruiser that bellied a slow but heavy punch. Uncle Vernon with none of the aggression. Little puppies been neutered.
A good choice for a security guard.
The Ice Truck Killer must have been a wily one to get a jump on someone like Tony Tucci, and Poppy squirreled that revelation away to savour later, when she could really swill the taste around her tongue without being seen.
Poppy glanced to the dent in the bedsheets between them, where a leg might have lied had Tony Tucci been there entirely, instead of missing one of his parts like an engine without a piston, instead of having it taken from him and spread about Miami for an impromptu photoshoot.
Her eye suddenly catches on the arm next. A tidy, dressed stub sliced off around two fingers wide above the wrist. Poppy stared intensely at that neat bump, and her heartbeat does a skitter-scurry in the wake of her ribs. That clean curved core. The absence of blood. Only fresh white bandages.
There's something magical there that Poppy can't grasp, so she doesn't and she respectfully looks away, reverie shattered.
"So you're a Profiler and you're going to… Profile the ma-… The one who did this to me?"
Behaviour analyst, Poppy wants to snap at him, this innocuous giant, just as Dexter had tried to correct her, instead, she skirts around the bend and sits casually at the bottom of it, legs angled towards Tucci's head, left hip hidden from view.
Her voice is all buttercup mellow when she speaks.
"I am. Do you remember anything from that time?"
Poppy didn't mention the gurney he was found strapped to in an abandoned hospital. Nor the amputation of his arm and leg. She doesn't mention menthol or anything that could trigger an emotive shut-in.
That was not how you approached situations like this, like how the Metro questioned him as soon as he awoke, erasing Morgana knows what from instigating a self-survival erasure of memory.
Who knew what Tony Tucci could have told her two days ago. Now she had to work with… This.
Tony, as she suspected he would, shrugged helplessly.
"I don't. Not much. I told the police woman everything I could remember be-… Before."
Poppy braces herself at the end of the bed, arms out, elbows locked, fingers on mattress edge.
She'd read the report, the sparse few details it had. Soft voice. No face. The smell of menthol sweets. I'm not the only one with a sweet tooth.
Nothing concrete to go one.
Poppy's fingers twisted around the mattress she sat on, by the broken, shattered, stolen leg, left hand dipping between the metal frame and the crisp sheet, concealed by her hip and-
And she strikes gold!
Slowly, slyly, out of sight, Poppy dragged the lollipop out from where it had been buried between the bed and the frame, trapped in a slat, waiting just for her. As she talks, she peeked down to her hand, looking, for all her worth, simply timid.
"That's fine, no rush. I just came down here to check on you anyway. You doing alright?"
From the corner of her green eye, Poppy can see Tony's face light up at her question, he, like every other Joe dirt out there, so eager to finally have someone interested in them, in what they were doing, in what they had eaten this morning.
Must be strange.
Poppy had spent her whole life trying to be unseen, out from Vernon and Petunia's abuse before the Dudley incident, out from under Tom Riddle's control, out from every other eye from seeing what she really was.
A wolf in sheep's clothing.
Poppy can't imagine a world where she would want, or need, anyone's attention. The Ice Truck Killer clearly wants ours.
Tony Tucci does live in that world, though, as he started to roll into a jolly monologue about his favourite nurses and the colour of jello he was given.
Poppy unfurls her fingers and looks at the Blood Pop in her hand, wrapped in poppy printed paper.
Another one.
The killer must have been here.
Just here. Just missed him. Just too slow.
The Ice Truck Killer had stockpiled her sweet under Tony Tucci's nose, likely made from Tony Tucci's blood, and he knew her enough to know she would come here next, sit in this very spot, and find this blood-stained slice of paradise.
Poppy's infuriated.
Poppy's impressed.
Poppy's-
Mixed up and blended up and shaken up and poured over ice.
Is this what complex emotion feels like? I don't like it. The ordinary can have it back.
Poppy cut the once security guard off.
"Had many visitors lately?"
Tony seemed momentarily confused before shaking his head.
"The police came last night. The nice one, Deborah, and the other, Doakes."
"Anyone else?"
Tony Tucci dithered, and Poppy fights the urge to reach over and grab his jaw, pin his head back and force the answers out with a wrench and a heave-
"Just the doctors and the nurses, and that nice prosthetists who's making me some new limbs. He's actually due over soon to take some more measurements-"
The beds got changed once a day. It was regulation. Poppy knew that.
It likely happened in the evening, which meant this lollipop had been stashed yesterday, in the night, after she had pulled in on the airstrip.
Had the killer come in while Tony Tucci was sleeping? He was on the second floor, not much of a climb through the window. It was a smart move, a clean move, a-
The door handle to the room clattered as it opened.
'Til we're stripped down to our skeletons again
'Til we're saints just swimming in our sins again
The first through the door was a woman, police, tall, thin, concealed gun under blazer, not much of a fight, not much blood in that slender frame, waste of time. Daddy issues out the wazoo. Mention him and his disappointment and she'll hit the ground like a bag of bricks. decked out in a blazer and slacks and a shiny police badge, long brown hair framing a long pale face, fluttering at her shoulders. The man besides her was in a lab coat, curls, black and dark as night messy upon his head, cheekbones sharp below darker eyes. Doctor of some kind. Keen eyed. Spotted you there straight away. Can't-
They both seem to startle at seeing her there, sitting at the end of the bed like The Nightmare painting by Henry Fuseli, the former frowning and the latter suddenly grinning toothily.
It throws Poppy, that smile. Dimpled. Happy?
No one, ever, was happy to see Poppy.
She's hungry, Biney.
Okay, just a little then. Give her here-
There's those voices again, disembodied phantoms spinning about her head like birds in a cartoon, only she's still awake, still standing, still screaming-
She needed to find this Ice Truck bastard and get the hell out of Miami. Poppy bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted blood. Sour. Tart. Berries plucked from the thorn bush before they were ripe. Hers.
Poppy shakes it off and stood, as the woman frowned greater at her.
"Who the fuck are you?"
Poppy popped a dark brow. If she had spoken like that, even to a civilian, at the BAU during her training she would have been kicked off the program.
"Poppy Moser. Criminal Behaviour-"
"Shit."
The woman dropped her off with a scowl that quickly boils to a lopsided grin.
"You're the big shot that's been called down from Quantico. I was expecting someone older and, you know… Taller. You here about the Ice Truck Killer then?"
Poppy glanced to Tony Tucci just in time to see him flinch.
Yeah, she had thought these people had been sloppy-
Not inadequate.
When Poppy peered back to the pair at the door, the woman was looking at her expectantly, fizzy almost, and the man-
The man was still smiling that smile, looking at her as if she had just preformed magic in front of him.
Poppy refuses to meet their eyes, should her Friend, still tossing and turning, start snarling.
"I suppose so. I'm guessing you're the prosthetists Tony was just telling me about?"
And this woman must be Deborah no-name with the wide-eyed-wonderstruck stare she was getting from Tucci.
The man broke away from the woman, stepping forward into the room, closer.
"Rudy Cooper."
He bowed his head in greeting, just an inch, barely enough to register movement keeping his gaze locked on her. Poppy stretches out her hand for a handshake, crossing the, now, small distance between them. The common greeting amongst strangers she had seen take place numerous times, a safe bet, one that normally didn't fail her-
Rudy sidestepped her open hand, darts forward, Poppy tenses, readies-
Arms are slung around her, she thinks, for a moment, a flash, he was going to throw her sideways, over the bed, through the fuckin' window, and she's already pulling magic up, into her fingers, sizzling just below the skin-
The arms tighten and-
Holds?
What is he-
Hug, Poppy belatedly realized.
She was being… Hugged.
When was the last time someone had hugged her? When was the last time someone had willingly touched her?
Not those half-hearted pats on the shoulders, or the two-stir hand shake, or the thrashing of her targets-
Poppy can't remember.
Poppy. Can't. Remember.
As a result she ended up just standing there. Tense. Strained. A string pulled stiff and stretched and seconds away from snapping. Arms straight at side, nose full of… Patchouli and honeysuckle, and menthol shampoo over sundried linen.
She sagged shamelessly into the smell, into the hold, and she strangely wants to say sorry, sorry, sorry.
Something thick, copper and rust and something darkly sweet, feels like its oozing down her throat, into the dark pit of her stomach.
She's starving-
"It's nice to finally meet you."
Poppy locks back up, the rope finally breaking at the whisper quivering into her curls, but before she could move, could speak, Rudy was pulling back and away, still maddeningly grinning.
"I heard about you in Arkansas when I took a year out working at the paediatrician hospital there."
Dread drops and a steely guard slams up.
Arkansas, her last… Vacation. Five-
Five sweet treats!
Rudy blinks and shrugs and smiles wider.
"You were in every paper in every shop corner for three months. You'd just caught the Arkansas Bomber. Good work, by the way."
Right. Yes. Fine. Good. She was good.
Was she good?
Yes, of course she was. She had to be.
American's were a touchy-feely lot.
They hugged all the time.
It was fine.
"Just doing my civic duty."
Poppy made a show of glancing to the clock on the wall.
"Would you look at the time. I have to go. You know what they say, no rest for the wicked."
The police woman, Deborah, seemed put out by her statement, but Rudy was looking down-
"Sweet tooth?"
Poppy startled and followed his sight-
To her hand holding the lollipop. Her scarred hand, I Must Not Tell Lies.
He could clearly see both.
The smile was gone.
A sweet treat for a sweet-toothed girl.
Poppy hastily shoved the lollipop into her jean's pocket. It felt deeper in there than it should be, as all good secrets do.
"You could say that."
Rudy's smile returns with a vengeance, but Deborah's voice broke between them.
"Deborah-… I mean Deb, everybody calls me Deb, by the way. We're having a get together tonight over some beers. Maybe you should come over? We can bounce ideas off each other. I have this theory that the Ice Truck Killer is-"
Really? Right in front of his lone surviving victim?
With the threat of social intermingling hanging precariously over her head, Poppy darted for the door as fast as socially acceptable.
"Sure. Get Dexter Morgan to message me the place. I do really have to go right now."
"Wait, you know Dex? How does Dexter already have your number-"
But Poppy was out the door and into the hallway with a reckless backwards wave.
"Have fun!"
And all throughout the hospital, right out into the parking lot and across to her bike parked in the far corner, Poppy carried with her the smell of patchouli and honeysuckle, and menthol shampoo over sundried linen.
She was definitely coming down with something.
Yay or Nay?
Next Chapter: Dexter battles against a revelation, visits the good Doctor, and comes away with a plan that will a hundred percent go very, very well…
A.N:
Poppy: I think I'm coming down with some sort of illness or disease.
Every other sane person: No, Poppy. That's called emotion.
Hello to everyone! I know we're a day early with this update, but I have a meeting with my dissertation professor tomorrow so I won't be around to update then, and instead of leaving it an extra day and posting on Wednesday, when I already have the chapter ready, I thought I'd post now.
A big, big, big, thank you to every one who followed, favourited, and of course reviewed last chapter. I really do hope you are having half as much fun as I am currently writing/polishing this thing. And it only goes crazier from here boys! One last time, thank you, and if you have a spare moment don't forget to drop a review, and I will hopefully see you all next week with a nice and shiny new chapter.
P.S: The lyrics used in this chapter are from Twin Skeletons by Fall Out Boy.
