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The scent of metal. The sound of arguing voices. The taste of cloth in her mouth. Two silhouettes, barely visible through her eyelids.
She tried to move, to lift a hand to her face and move the hair from her eyes, but her hand caught on something, restraining her movements. Plastic wrap. Her ears rang, her head hurt, and she was tied to a fucking table with plastic wrap. She groaned as she tried to lift her head and see the people next to her, but her eyes refused to focus and adapt to the darkness of the room she was in. The voices had quietened, and both men were staring at her silently.
“Oh look. She’s woken up in time for the fun”
The voice was slightly familiar, but too cold to be anyone she knew. It lacked the intonation necessary to have come from a human being. It was too.. empty. Like the speaker did not have enough emotions to talk like a normal person. Like he didn't really believe the word “fun” could be anything other than depriving a person of their skin.
Her eyes widened, and she began to shake, as she remembered what had happened. Why the voice was so familiar. Rudy, her goddamn fucking fiance. The Ice Truck Killer. She began to thrash, move around, crying out against the gag in her mouth, but she couldn’t move. She had been truly cemented down, unable to do anything but sob uselessly for help.
A hand brushed against her cheek, caressing her skin softly, and she flinched away.
”Now, now Debra. It’s alright. Dexter and I will take care of you.”
She barely understood the words as the gentle touch on her face became hard and he grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. His grin was evil, teeth shining but eyes empty and calculating. He moved her head further, to look at the man next to him and-
oh
Dexter was looking down at her, almost as cold as Rudy. She continued screaming and thrashing for help, but her cries died out quickly when she saw that Dex was making no move to help. Just staring at her, soulless and blank.
The gag was ripped from her mouth and she let out a choked sob.
”Oh god oh my- Dex, god, Dex what the fuck is happening”
His face flickered briefly with.. something. She hoped it was sadness, or shame, or some other fucking human emotion.
”Go on Dexter. She’s asked you a question. Let's not be rude”
It was Rudy who spoke, condescending and slow, as if speaking to a confused child.
”I don’t.. I’m not sure what to say”
Debra let out another small sob, and turned away. That wasn't her brother, that couldn't be her brother. Rudy grabbed at her face again, rougher this time and yanked her chin to look at them. He looked at Dexter with thinly veiled impatience, and spoke to him quietly again.
“We’ve been over this, dear brother. You have to do this. So you can live untethered.”
But Debra didn't hear the rest of the sentence. Her mind stopped computing after the word brother.
“B-brother?”
Rudy smiled again, this time with actual emotion behind it. Pride? Excitement? Affection?
“Oh yes. None of this foster bullshit. Dexter and I are biological brothers. Blood brothers. Real brothers”
She looked towards her Dex, pleading, begging with her eyes for him to deny it. But he just looked at her, still with that expression on his face. She could recognise it now. Conflict. Because even though he had lived with the morgan family since he was three years old, he was conflicted on whether or not to join Rudy. He was conflicted on whether or not to kill her.
“I’m.. fond. Of her.”
Dex had always been a little weird, bad at expressing his emotions, awkward in social situations. But that was just.. that was just Dexter. This was different. His face was not controlled into the fake smiles he gave at work. The smiles he gave to her. This face was cold. Slack and deadpan and empty , and he was saying that after 30 fucking years of living with her, of her being his sister, all he was.. was ‘fond’ of her. She loved him, the only family she truly had, and he.. god fucking dammnit.
“I’m sorry, Deb. You have to understand”
She thought of all the suspicious shit he did. How Doakes seemed to think he was a mass murderer or some shit. She thought of his obsession with blood. She thought of the simple fact that Dexter was standing above her, and contemplating killing her with barely a fucking ounce of hesitation, and she knew.
“You've done this before. K-killed, before”
She couldn't help the stammer, barely keeping herself from becoming the stuttering, sobbing mess she wanted to be. Her fiance, her brother. The only people she even remotely liked in the world.
Dexter, to his credit, did seem slightly guilty. Well, no not guilty. She couldn't recognise the expression but it was something.
“How long, Dex.”
He opened his mouth wordlessly and closed it again. Beside him, Rudy smiled cruelly.
“How fucking long have you been doing this?”
“Since I was twenty”
“How many people?”
This time he did turn away, his face contorting before he schooled it back to unintelligible empty. At least he had the decency to be unable to look her in the eyes while he shattered her entire world. Maybe he was at least slightly fucking capable of human empathy.
“32”
oh fucking god.
BTK killed ten. Dahmer had killed seventeen. The fucking Ice Truck Killer, 19. Bundy, 30. Some of the worst serial killers she could think of. And goddammit Dex was worse than them all. He worked in a police station. He assisted on the Ice Truck Killer case. And now he stood next to him, nothing but a shell of the brother she had once looked up to.
“We really don’t have time for this, dear brother. As much as I truly am enjoying this little heart to heart of yours, I think it’s best we make that number a nice 33 and move on, hm?”
He handed Dexter a knife, which he took readily. It fit well in his hand. Like it belonged there. Perhaps it did. Perhaps this version of Dexter really was more comfortable in the company of a blade than her. She let out a breath. If it was the end, it was a pretty shitty way to go. She wished she had been eaten by a shark, hung by her own intestines. “Killed by brother” wasn’t exactly a fun anecdote for her grave.
Dexter lifted the blade and she tensed for a moment, before calming herself. She didn't mind dying. I mean, sure the circumstances were subpar but it wasn't like she had a real reason to miss life. Her fiance was a killer, her only family still alive was a killer. She was alright. At peace. She opened her eyes, to look at her brother one last time before he plunged the knife down.
The blade didn't move. Dexter’s brow furrowed as he looked at her, and his jaw twitched. The knife did not shake, no, he was too professional for that, but the rest of him seemed about to combust.
She hated what he was. Hated that he was a killer. But Debra could never hate him . Not Dex. She smiled at him, perhaps to comfort him. Let him know it was okay. She was at peace, and he could do it without guilt, or shame.
The knife moved, but not downward. It slashed out towards Rudy, slitting his throat. The blood splashed against Dexter and he physically recoiled, looking as shocked as she was at the dead body in front of him. Though it wasn't dead yet. Rudy slumped against Dexter, and began to speak through the gurgling of his blood.
“You can- can't be a hero and a k-killer. It doesn't work that w-way”
Dexter stiffened at the words and placed his forehead against his brother’s, mourning the loss of the life they could never have together.
“I’m sorry, Brian”
—————
A few days later they sat in the shipyard and stared at the container it had happened in. Dexter didn't cry, or grieve really. He just.. stared. And Debra sat next to him.
That's who they were. Brian had understood Dex. But he had chosen Debra anyway. Because now she understood him too. And even though he had almost killed her, he had abandoned his chance of true family for her.
She would resent the killer that he was. But she would never resent him.
As she leaned her head on Dexter's shoulder, she knew that everything would be okay. He was her brother goddamnit. And Harry had always told her that family comes first.
That had always been her own code of harry. Protect Dex.
And she would.