Chapter Seven:

Wood and Glass and Blood


Listen to the voice of Buddha

Saying stop your sericulture


Poppy Moser stood under the canopy, propped against the canary palm tree trunk across the road, the rising dawn trickling streaked sunlight at her feet, staring ahead at the tawdry, brightly coloured billboard welcoming her to Palm Terrace in front of a squat looking set of apartment complexes.

The waterfront wasn't far off from the building, cobalt and fresh and sparkling like spit-polished sapphires on a bluebeard's wedding band. Even from inside the apartments, both the top and second floor, you would be able to see the water if you peeked out the window.

Poppy pushed her rounded sunglasses further up her nose, hooking a finger into the cuff of her leather glove, tugging tightly, flexing fingers, still careful of pulling too hard on her bandaged thumb, fastening up and buckling down.

Not long now.

It hadn't been hard finding this place, as it hadn't been difficult to discover that Dexter Morgan, Deceptive Dexter Morgan, was currently living here, somewhere, through one of those square white doors and the tall, draped windows.

It was all in his records at the Metro.

8240 Palm Terrace, #10B

Miami, FL 33142

The last top floor apartment on the right.

It was almost as if he had left the gingerbread crumb trail just for her to follow to the cannibal-candy-wonderland-

Or he was arrogant enough to believe no one would be suspicious enough of him, and psychopathic enough of themselves to ever track him down and break into his supposedly 'safe space'.

7:15 am came ticking by, and the apartment door Poppy was watching swung open, a crop of sunset tinted curls glinting in the rising morning light.

Dexter Morgan on his donut run.

Poppy watched him go, bags ready for the day at the lab ahead, lanyard around neck, crisp and neat in his button down and slacks.

And somewhere stashed on him her blood. Or was that at the lab already? Had he gone straight into work after the bar last night? Put her blood in a little test tube and sent it off to be span around and shoved underneath a microscope? Did he have an answer to their question already sitting pretty on his desk in a magnolia envelope?

It didn't matter.

Poppy would have her own answers this morning.

She watched him go all the way to his car, and she watched him and the muggle machine pull out and into the road. Poppy didn't duck behind the tree when he came careening passed her.

There was no need.

The Notice-me-not Charm would be enough cover against a muggle eye. Even one as keen as Dexter Morgan's.

She waited for the silver car to disappear from view and into the sun-soaked streets before she apparated up to the top floor of the apartment complex, running her finger across the railing of the white-washed iron balustrade before she came to a stop at the door.

10b.

B for Bingo.

B for Blood.

Poppy reached for the handle, whispering under her breath, a little dash of wandless magic.

"Alohomora."

The lock ticked open with a satisfying click. She twisted the brass handle, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.


Little people like your offspring

Boiled alive for some God's stocking

Buddha's watching, Buddha's waiting


It was a nice set-up; Poppy would admit that. Amenities, according to the website she had browsed before coming here, included a private pool and designated parking spaces, the apartments accessed by a lone external corridor.

No sneaking up on Dexter's back with him hunkering down in a bottle neck.

Inside was… Well-kept, consisting of a living room, kitchen, work space, bathroom and a single bedroom.

Poppy made a lap of the apartment, jotting down the floor space blue print in her mind, adding her own little connotations, notes of interest, a medicine cabinet in the bathroom, air-con in the living room study combo, a wide tall walk-in closet in the bedroom, before making her way in a loop back to the front door. It was all very… Banal. And despite this, despite the triviality of it all, a bachelor pad for a bachelor man, Poppy knew, she fuckin' knew in the way only someone like her could, that these walls contained surprises, secret places for secret Needs.

The Need.

The walls oozed it, like mould spores, dark bacteria for dark woods to disseminate.

So where did Dexter Morgan stash his Satan?

Poppy wondered over into the work space, over and around the four-legged table, slipping into the leather seat, drumming leather clad fingers across the wooden desk as she went.

A huntsman with too much wood and no axe to grind.

She tried to imagine Dexter sitting right here where she was, late at night, face illuminated by the screen of the closed laptop before her.

A no go. She doubted Dexter would be dumb enough to use his birthday as a password, and electronics didn't… Work very well with Magic users. If she tried to unlock it with an Alohomora, Poppy was more than likely to explode the battery and get acid everywhere.

Maybe a spell to think about creating later.

Poppy turned her attention away from the laptop. There was a long arm lamp to the side, a little metal tray for folders, cases brought home from work to whittle away the night hours and dull evenings, Dexter didn't seem to be much of a sleeper, a tissue box and a coaster stack, and a square photo frame.

Poppy reached out and snatched the latter up, head cocking at the smiling faces behind the glass.

Deborah Morgan was younger here, fringe full and hair long as her cheeks were rosy, in a stripped t-shirt next to an equally as young Dexter Morgan, hair floppy and unkept, smile-

Smile not reaching his eyes.

Sitting at his desk, holding his photo, breathing in his air, Poppy tried to see that Dexter. Dex and Debs. Debs and Dex. Brother and sister.

Poppy wouldn't know what that was like. She had seen adverts though, sisters stealing their brother's toys and brothers making faces over the dinner table of a grocery commercial.

Is that what Poppy was here to do?

No.

Poppy wasn't interested in plastic soldiers or water guns. Poppy doubted Dexter had any of those hoarded somewhere in his cool-clean apartment.

Does he have her kind of toys? The sharp-shiny sort? She hopes so. She hopes not.

Poppy felt as if she was a daisy with her petals being plucked. Debs and Dex… Brother and sister.

Poppy can't see herself in Debs place, in the photo she was holding or otherwise. Out on family fishing trips and days spent at the beach, sitting down and sharing meals over a crowded kitchen table, having someone else's shoes sitting next to hers in a hallway.

Brother.

What a strange word, two syllables, countless meanings. A sharing of genetic material, a match of plasma, branches twisted from the same tree.

Poppy can't see herself with one of those. Can't quite imagine a world fucked up enough to have not only her in it, but some other poor sod who shared her bad-blood-

And it was bad-blood. This mould she had inside herself, the decay that somehow swelled in the dark parts of her organs, this Shadow Friend, this poison, it came from the blood.

It was always the blood.

Poppy's not in denial, she's not having trouble handling the unsubtle revelation of last night-

Okay, she was having a little trouble accepting it. After all, Poppy looked more like Rudy fuckin' Cooper than Dexter bloody Morgan.

Poppy placed the photo frame back and didn't look at it again, kicking back in Dexter's chair, spinning on the back legs, face to the ceiling, watching the pale colours swirl before her eyes.

Brother.

Poppy didn't know what having one of those could mean… But she thought she might like to know, and she doesn't know what that says about her.

Poppy's never really wanted anyone or anything before. Hermione and Ron were her friends, as close to friends as Poppy could have, and even then, sitting here, across the great pond in America, having last heard from Hermione in… Two months, Poppy didn't miss them.

They were there, sometimes they weren't, and both suited her just fine. She didn't want them hurt, of course. She didn't want them gone permanently, but neither did she really care all too much if the phone never flashed with Hermione's number again.

Maybe it would have been better for her fellow Witch if she never did ring again.

People and places were transient spaces to Poppy. Spaces, like Dexter Morgan's apartment, that she stole herself away into. Momentary pitstops on her journey across the road of life. She pulled up, she docked for a while, she played the part of a local trucker, bought herself one of those cheesy regional caps, and then she moved on with the corpses squirreled away in the back of her lorry.

Poppy couldn't fathom trying to take someone from one of those pitstops with her, not in the back of her lorry but in the passenger seat, alive, breathing-

What am I doing here?

The chair stopped spinning, landing back to the floor with a thud; the walls slowly swam back to stillness.

What does it matter if he is my… Brother?

Poppy's chin fell to her chest, leather gloves scrubbing underneath the red tinged sunglasses at her eyes.

It won't change anything.

Won't it?

Will it?

Her Friend didn't answer.

The bastard.

Poppy pushed off from the chair, making her way to the bookshelves, skimming over the titles and the trophies and the memorabilia littering the slopes strategically.

Dexter Morgan was a neat man. Anally retentive, Poppy would say. Staged, her Friend would snarl.

Her fingers stopped by the lower shelf, over the spine of a long, squat leather-bound album. Poppy pulled it from its home, flicking through the sleeves, snapshots passing her by in quick succession.

Dexter Morgan with a Science fair trophy.

Dexter Morgan with a hunter's rifle in hand.

Dexter Morgan with a soccer ball perched underneath his arm.

Dexter Morgan smiling in every single one-

None of the smiles reaching his hazel eyes.

Are you like me? Could it be? What do you know? What are you hiding? The Bad-blood? The chainsaw? The sound of bone bouncing off steel? A woman's dying plea for her children to look away?

Poppy stalled on the next flip of a page.


Just because the kid's an orphan

Is no excuse for thoughtless slaying


It was a square photo, one of the larger ones, a family sitting together at a beach. Dexter crouched in the sand, little Debs sitting at a mother's hip on a sunbathing bed, a shirtless man at the woman's shoulder leaning on the parasol underneath a hot Miami sun.

Poppy knew that man.

That woman too.

Petunia had but one photo of them, one she had placed on the stairwell leading upstairs at number 4 privet drive. A photo of her own wedding, the only photo Petunia had that contained Lily Evans-

Lily Evans in the background, next to this man and woman, so far back their faces were nearly just thumbprints in the shadows. Unwelcomed interlopers, but kept in frame due to some fleeting sentimentality Petunia was sometimes struck by.

Harry Morgan and Dorothy Morgan.

Poppy's aunt and uncle.

Poppy's American aunt and uncle.

Poppy's American aunt and uncle that had taken her from a crime scene.

Dudley, before his accident, used to snicker at her when he saw that photo, telling her that his mum said those two had found her in a garbage can, and they should have left her there for the bin men to collect.

Six years later, when Poppy had found Godric's Hollow and all those photos contained within, she had saw the man and woman more clearly.

She had also found her mother's diary.

September 25th 1982. Me and James are going to visit Dorothy and Harry this week. A break from my Mastery and James's studies at the Auror Academy will do us some good I think, and I heard Miami has lovely weather this time of year. Not too hot, and it's been a while since we saw my sister and her husband.

The next week and a half of diary entries had been ripped from their home in the slim book.

October 8th 1982. We brought Poppy home with us, and she's now officially a Potter. Remus said it might have been hasty, adopting so quickly the way we did, but he didn't see what me and James did. She needs us, and maybe we need her just as much too. Since little Harry This could be a new start for all of us. Poppy Potter has a nice ring to it, don't you think? Better than Moser, anyway. Better we keep her far from all that. The shipping She'll have a good life with us. James has already decorated her room. We originally painted it green, but when Poppy saw it she had a screaming fit incident. We repainted it yellow. She seemed to like that better. I rang Harry last night for some advice. He said his son isn't speaking either. He said to give it time. Luckily, we all have plenty of that. Yes. Poppy will have a good life with us, I think.

Twenty-three days later, the sum of the promised good life, Lily and James were dead, one on the stairs and one on the nursery floor. In the back of the diary, folded up primly, had been Poppy's adoption papers, and then she was an orphan twice over.

Poppy dropped the photo album to the floor with a thud.

He said his son isn't speaking either.

Poppy had always thought it had been some sort of cousin, another dastardly Dudley destined for the tires of a Ford, and Lily had turned to Harry and not Petunia because they were closer. But what if-

What if she was talking to the only other person who knew how to navigate what she was navigating?

Adoption.

Harry Morgan mockingly grinned up from the photo on the floor, and Poppy's world span around that smile.

B.R.O.T.H.E.R.

Seven letters like seven Horcruxes. There were bigger words in the English language. Complicated and dense and lengthy, even more intricate words in the Latin-esque Wizarding spellwork Poppy fluently spoke.

Brother.

Then why did this one hit her with the strength of a wrecking ball? A sucker punch right through the fabric of her life, tearing a Dexter Morgan shaped hole inside her carefully stitched soul, shoving everything else aside, ripping out the unneeded embroidery she had spent so long and so hard crafting, so he could fit himself in there? Weasel his way in and take root in a soil not meant for his feet?

Brother.

Poppy stumbled back a step, away from the photo, away from the smile, away from uncle Harry smiling at her from the other side of paper and ink.

Bad-blood brother.

Poppy whirled, darting for the bathroom, fumbling on tile, finding a prize in the toothbrush sitting neatly in the holder on the sink.

She plucked it up and aimed her wand right at the bobbled head. This wasn't cheating. This wasn't fraud. She was still playing fair-

But she needed to know.

"Revelarus Familia Sanguinem."

The head flashed gold-

And then settled to soft-pale silver light tinged with blue.

BROTHER.

Dexter Morgan was her brother.

For the second time that day, Poppy found herself crashing to a bathroom floor, toothbrush still in hand, staring at the silver-blue light. Her chest constricted-

Her free hand came up to her breast, over her shirt, palm flat and fingers splayed.

Her heartbeat ricocheted off her ribs, leaping between her pressing hand and the hollow inside.

Huh, was this what fear felt like? No… Hope?

Something that makes the bad-blood sing.


People don't forget this torture

Just because you call her mother

Doesn't mean that she's your better


Poppy tore the place apart. She upended the couches, cleared out the fridge, dug her way through Dexter's shelves and his files, and she ended up in his bedroom closet, shirts and trouser flailed around her.

Poppy was desperate, suddenly needful, abruptly demanding, unexpectedly wanting to know every little secret this awe-surprise apartment had to offer her on Dexter Morgan.

He liked his food, expensive stakes and sauces and saffron stocked in his fridge.

He had a boat somewhere docked in a mariner, maybe her next stop, a photo of it out at sea on his bedside table next to his alarm clock.

He had exercise equipment stacked and stocked in a closet, the wear of the tread on the runner telling Poppy he spent most mornings on the machine.

Poppy found a black duffel at the bottom of his closest, and clawed it out, unzipping, tipping.

Rolls of cash, tickets and-

Passports came falling to the carpeted floor.

Huh…

Poppy seized one passport up, and then another, flipping open the snappy pages. Both had Dexter Morgan's face in the photo… Neither had the same name.

Luke Oswald.

Jim Lindsay.

Poppy glanced between the passports and the hoard of cash on the floor and still rolls waiting for use in the duffel.

Not a fishing trip bag then-

A getaway bag. We have one of those!

Yes, Poppy did, although hers contained far less money and more potions and hexed cards, and Poppy knew why she needed one.

Why would Dexter Morgan unless he was the-

Does he have our shiny-sharp toys? Are we going to steal them?

Poppy dropped the passports, burrowing into the bottom of the closet, seizing the black-brass tacked trunk at the very bottom, dragging it out of its private home. Throwing the lid up and open only revealed to her the fishing equipment she had expected in the duffle bag.

Poppy pulled it all out. Wire and hooks and feathered bobbers, every last one, until she got to the very empty bottom.

Nothing.

Not a thing.

Where was he keeping-

Poppy pulled back, and that was when she noticed it.

She peeked back inside the box, and prodded the bottom. Pulled back out to glance outside the box, running a hand along the brass tacked seam.

"Clever boy."

The bottom inside the trunk was a good three, four inches higher than what the bottom of the trunk outside said it should be.

A fake base.

Gliding her hand along the bottom of the outside of the trunk, nudging, goading, Poppy rounded the third corner, along the largest face of the trunk, when she felt one of the brass tacks give out a tiny, muted tink when pressed.

The hidden draw popped free, and Poppy grinned.

"Clever, but not clever enough."

Her fingers curled around and pulled open the hidden draw.

"Holy Mother Morgana…"

Inside the concealed apartment laid a cornucopia of surgical delight. Bone saws sharp amongst butcher cleavers dotted around boning knives and filleting daggers, bookended by poultry shears and a pretty row of big and small scalpels. Poppy's hand dipped into the draw, gloved fingers curling around a warmly loved steel handle of a mean looking blade.

Just the one like it amongst all the different prizes.

Just one.

The one.

She pulled it up to her face and watched the edge glint in the harsh light of the incandescent bedroom lightbulb above. Her reflection winked back at her in black and pale and green.

There was no blood on it. No sign of wear and tear and scuffs. Not even a single scratch-

And yet Poppy knew. She knew.

This blade had been used. A lot. Not for cooking. Not for skinning. Not for, as Poppy did when she couldn't find a Philips head and was too tired for magic, for fixing in screws. There was only one use for this blade.

Hunting.

Wild game. The wildest game.

Humans.

Poppy stayed there for a long time, sitting in the middle of Dexter Morgan's upended bedroom, dagger up, staring at her own warped reflection in the edge.

And she comes up short in every single way.

The first is with the Ice Truck Killer. There was no refrigeration unit in this apartment, not one big enough to store torn apart limbs. From her skim of his files at Metro to find out where Dexter lived, neither did he rent any building or vehicle that contained one. So how was he doing it? Dexter Morgan, undoubtedly, was a muggle, he only had his hands to work with-

The lollipops were for you. The bodies-

Weren't.

Poppy had seen it back at the ice-rink, hadn't she? The Ice Truck Killer had been speaking to her and someone else.

If Dexter Morgan wasn't the Ice Truck Killer-

He was the other recipient.

Finally you fuckin' moron. Been so focused on Dexter, you've left us blinded-

Secondly, Dexter was her brother. Her brother with a very sharp set of knives. Her brother who had a getaway bag, and a kill set, and a pretty, pretty knife-

And no lollipops. No trophies.

Wrong again. You saw it as soon as you came in. You noticed. You knew. That would be where you would put your sugar-stash.

Poppy dropped the knife, but did not put it back in the box. No. Instead she slipped it into the side of her boot handle up, stored and secreted and stolen.

Maybe she could be a sister after all.

A sister who stole their brother's toys.

She stood, left the bedroom a mess, and thudded into the open spaced main area of the apartment, eyes dead ahead and locked onto her reward.

She had seen it. She had made note of it. She had found and made notice of the medicine cabinet in the bathroom where Dexter kept his toothbrush. She had made mention of the tall closet in the bedroom where he hid his box of surprises. There was only one last place…

Poppy came to a stop across the room, near the desk and the bookcase, the distractions that had slowed her down. She reached up to the white front, gloved hands gripping-

The air con unit's face came off with a click.

In the dark hollow, a flat, brown wooden box laid in waiting. Poppy lowered the plastic sheet to the floor, reached inside, and took the box with steady but soft hands. She sat down at the work desk and place it on top of the laptop. She reached over, and with one finger, just a flip, unlocked the brass latch with a flick.

She doesn't open it straight away. Instead she reached up and slips her sunglasses up, pinning back her curls, keeping her sight clean and clear.

Then she opens it, and her breath catches as the lock to the front door had.

There was wood, and glass, and blood.

A blood slide box.

Poppy ran a leather clad finger down the line of red, the glass tinkling in the box, and she counts as she goes, counting the bumps, the bounces, the bobs.

Fifty-seven.

There was fifty-seven blood slides.

Poppy picked the last up, held it up through the light, peered through the cracked drop of blood until the apartment looked red and dead.

She gets it then. Poppy understands.

They had gotten their messages mixed up in transit. The lollipops weren't meant for her. The bodies weren't meant for Dexter.

They were meant for each other.

Treasure hunt clues leading them to one another if you followed the breadcrumb trail long enough.

The bodies had been meant for her to see Dexter. The lollipops had been meant for Dexter to see her. Only they had blundered it up. Dexter had set off to the gingerbread house before Poppy, and missed the lollipops altogether, and Poppy had taken a side street, distracted by Hansel-Dexter and his butcher knife.

The Ice Truck Killer had known all along, before they had even been in the same city, the same State, before either knew the other had existed. They had known about Poppy's Shadow Friend. They had known about Dexter's wooden box. They had known about the police man Harry Morgan, and the adoptions, and the multicoloured nail polished hand-

They had known it all, and most importantly, they had wanted Dexter and Poppy to know it too.

They were in the dark room. That dream shipping container filled with blood and memories and chainsaws.

Pitch black.

Poppy lowered the blood slide and slid it back into its home, closing the box altogether, running a hand along the length.

Who was inside this box?

Poppy needed to know.

She needed to know.

This is what the Ice Truck Killer had wanted from the very beginning. They liked the dark. They were born in it. He knew how to move in it, how to hunt-

Then Poppy needed to switch the light on. She needed to make it bright. She needed to close the shadows in tight, and see where the spiders scuttled.

Poppy felt-

Good. Right then, she felt good. Like herself. She knew this dance. She knew what she needed to do. She knew what it would take.

She needed to go where she had never, never wanted to go.

Back to the beginning.

It was risky, what she was thinking. Real risky. It could go tits up at any moment-

But she had something this Ice Truck Killer didn't have. Something Dexter didn't have. Something, clearly, neither had put together yet, or they wouldn't have been playing this game the way they had.

Magic.

Poppy stood from the desk, and picked up the wooden box. She slowly strolled around the apartment, fixing her own mess with a few well aimed spells until nothing was remiss.

In the end, she left the apartment just as she had found it. Minus Dexter's knife and wooden box.

Those she took with her as she slipped out the door.


Once more with the voice of Buddha

He'll say carry on your slaughter
Who cares for the little children
You may slice with no conviction
Blind revenge on a blameless victim


Thoughts?


Next Chapter: Rudy visits the Metro with a gift, and Dexter gets some results and the surprise of a lifetime when he's confronted with a room full of his victim's faces staring back from a whiteboard...


A.N: I had to split this chapter into two parts. Poppy's and Dexter's P.O.V, and what's happening with them currently, really didn't go well together. It ended up feeling like a big jump in thematic that didn't really sit right when attached together as Poppy's bit is filled with introspection, and as you will see, Dexter's is filled with more action and Oh shit moments lol. So, good news is you guys get an early update with this chapter, and hopefully, if I have enough time over the next week or so to tighten some things up, the next part relatively soon. I will say it's the biggest one yet, and I'm super excited for it, as, finally, Poppy throws the first punch so to speak. Hope you are all looking forward to it!

On that note, I'm most likely going to be sticking to one P.O.V per chapter this fic. So it will most likely alternate from here on out, so going Poppy, Dexter, Poppy and so forth. Until Brian's P.O.V starts to be included, and then it will be Poppy, Dexter, Brian, back to Poppy. Hope that makes sense!

P.S: The lyrics in this chapter are from the Human League song Being Boiled.

THANK YOU all for the followers, favourites and the lovely reviews! I hope you all liked this chapter, and if you have a spare moment or two, please drop a review, and I will hopefully see you all soon!