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“Hello, Dexter Morgan,” even if the man weren't looking down on him as he spoke, the thinks he would still feel small.
Arthur is smiling down at him, a malicious and sadistic killer and serial abuser.
Arthur knows. Arthur knows. Knows his name, knows who he is.
Dexter knows he’s shaking.
He knows who Arthur is, and what he’s done. And now Arthur knows, who he is, why he situated himself in Arthur's life.
(It all came back after Arthur had taken that boy, Scott). (Memories from yet another childhood trauma he would have rather just stayed lost). (Sitting, waiting for the man to kill him). (Kicking and fighting and trying to run). (The man's hand firmly clamped over his nose and mouth, smothering him until he stopped fighting).
(How the panic and fear had closed up his lungs and throat). (How he’d given up, given in, tried to do everything Arthur wanted him to do, hoping that his compliance would buy him a quick death).
(Memories of knowing for certain that Arthur was going to kill him).
Arthur is going to kill him. That much is still true.
But this time it's worse. (Somehow, it's worse).
He isn’t a child, he isn’t a ten-year-old boy, but he’s still helpless.
Arthur could easily find out about his family. His family. He’d put them in danger.
Rita, Astor, Cody, Harrison. He's put them all in danger. (It isn't just him that Arthur can and might kill). (He has a family now, he has a wife and three children and they're all in danger because of his mistakes). (He's fallen for Arthur's act a second time when he should have been old enough to know better). (He's repeating his own history). (Repeated his own mistakes again).
The last time Arthur had said his name he was still in that hotel parking lot. Ten years old, hair falling into his eyes, and wearing the junior Blue Marlin soccer team uniform. (The last time he'd ever worn that uniform). (He remembers crying and shaking as Arthur pulled his cleats off of his feet, he remembers being locked in a dingy bathroom and told to put on clothes that weren't his).
The man walks past him, towards the enclosed forensics lab. He had made a mistake, saving Arthur. He knew that as soon as Jonah started to trust him. As soon as Jonah had started talking to him.
He gets past the man, the killer, and places himself in the doorway. (Cornering himself, trapping himself even as both his dark passenger and own survival instincts scream against it).
“We should talk somewhere else,” his coworkers are here, his friends. His sister. He doesn't know what Arthur will do. And it's nauseating.
He feels like he's going to throw up or pass out. Dizzy and choking on nothing.
“Somewhere private? So you can extort money from the trinity killer?” Arthur sneers. Money?
He still thinks this is about money… Does he not remember? Does he think that this can be settled with money? Does he think Dexter values life so little as to ignore the decades of innocents killed for money?
“So, what do you want?” his voice wavers, he can’t help it. He’s cornered, by the man that kidnapped him when he was a boy, that was going to kill him then, and is definitely going to kill him now.
It's only a matter of time. He should have killed the man when he had the chance. He should never have spared Arthur from the killer's own suicide attempt.
“I want you to disappear from my life, like a ghost.”
He nods, not trusting his voice, trying to push away how familiar it feels. How it feels exactly like it had the first time he’d caved into Arthur’s demands, as a boy, just wishing to be granted a quick death. (Small and defeated and sure of his demise).
It doesn't help that Arthur's referring to him as if he's already dead. A ghost. A dead man that should have died as a child.
“A really annoying ghost.” Arthur continues.
“And you’ll disappear from my life?” he asks, stuck in a whisper, knowing that he won’t be able to get enough air for any real volume.
“I couldn’t care less about your life,”
Dexter blinks, sure that the man is lying, he has to be-
“Or death.”
There it is.
“So long as you stay out of my way,” Arthur waits. For his surrender, for his agreement.
He nods, trying not to feel like a helpless kid. Because he isn't anymore. He isn't a kid. (But Arthur has this way of making him feel like one, making him feel like he's small, naive, and now... helpless). (Arthur has a way of making him give in, give up).
“If I were you, I’d give up vigilantism, you’re not very good at it,” Arthur says with a tone of haughty dismissal.
Arthur doesn't know who he is. Not really, he doesn't remember.
“It’s revenge,” he finds himself whispering— fear and fury burning in his veins, behind his eyes. The dark passenger claws from underneath his skin, afraid and lashing out like a cornered, violent animal.
“Excuse me?” Arthur turns back to him, head tilted, staring him down. He tries to fight how small it makes him feel. (Arthur isn't that much larger than him, and probably isn't any stronger than him). (But he remembers...)
“You don’t remember me, do you? You don’t know who I am?” he tries to ignore how it feels like waking up in that basement. When Arthur had first called him by the wrong name.
“I know perfectly well who you are,” the killer says, cold, dead eyes boring into his. But he doesn’t. He doesn't know. He doesn't remember.
And every bit of fear, everything, every bad memory, and every bit of breathless panic the man has given to him comes back, full force in fury.
“July 1981, I was ten years old,” he starts, but then he can’t continue, his throat closing in rage and panic and the awful helpless feeling.
He can see the connections forming in Arthur’s mind.
“The little soccer brat," the killer in front of him says, finally seeing. It's nothing to him though.
For Dexter that summer was-
It was a lot.
To Arthur, it wasn't. He had barely been a blip on the man's radar after-
"I can’t say I wondered where you’d gone, and I can’t say you’re any good at revenge either, Dexter Morgan,” this is the way Arthur talks down to his children, Dexter has seen it, heard it. Condescending, cruel.
He isn't a kid anymore. But he understands now why Arthur’s family had been too scared to try and leave him.
He made them feel small. And the hurt he'd dealt them lingered even when he wasn't there, like a weight hanging over their heads.
He should have killed Arthur when he had the chance. Before any of this had escalated. Before he had a chance to remember.
But he hadn't.
And now he and his family are in danger.
Arthur is going to kill him, going to come after him and his family. Going to destroy his life. After all these years; Arthur has found him, and he knows who Dexter is.
And Dexter feels the dread in him like certainty. His family is in danger.
He has to kill Arthur. Miami Metro is nowhere close to catching him yet.
He has to kill the man, kill the other killer. For his safety, for the safety of his family.