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As a general rule, Brian doesn’t wake up earlier than Dexter does. His brother has work five days a week—sometimes more, if there’s a new crime—and has a tendency to get up extremely early in the mornings. It’s not as if that’s something that he doesn’t do himself—it’s engrained into his very being after fifteen years in That Place and lots of work in the hospital—but the habit has been mostly broken ever since his brother started dosing him with Ketamine before he goes to bed. (In the quiet of his own mind, he can admit that that is a complaint. He wants to see more of his brother.) But, every so often, he wakes up before his brother does and gets to watch him sleep before he gets ready and leaves him for the day.
Today is one of those days.
It’s not a particularly restful sleep; the drugs leave him groggy even on a good night, and last night was particularly busy. His first murder in months, the shower, cleaning up the kill room, and the bullshit about Lila. (Even thinking her name makes his blood pressure skyrocket, so he endeavors to pull his thoughts away from her.) Oh, and the sex with his brother. Can’t forget that. It was an eventful day, to say the least, and now, Brian is dealing with the consequences of that. His entire body aches from exertion, and his eyes are particularly sore. He glances over at the clock. No wonder. It’s five in the morning.
He looks over at Dexter, and everything gets a little bit better.
Dexter is a cuddler. Not necessarily when he’s awake—when that’s going on, he can be ridiculously stubborn whenever he isn’t feeling particularly emotional, and he rejects all touch when Harry Morgan’s ‘you’re an unlovable monster’ rants get to him. (It happens more often than he’d like, but the frequency seems to be decreasing the longer that Brian sticks around.) But the moment that he’s asleep, Dexter Moser is as cuddly as a touch-starved octopus. He tangles his legs with Brian’s and wraps his arms so tightly around his ribs that he can barely breathe with any ease. It’s like he’s trying to smother him with affection.
It wouldn’t be the worst way to go.
Dexter is ridiculously adorable when he sleeps. His pretty, green eyes are hidden—which is a decided minus—but there’s a peace to him that’s never present when he’s awake, and Brian loves to watch him in the early mornings, if only to see him like that. His hair, which just barely shows the first hint of waviness—a far cry from the curls and mess that plague him—is sticking out in every direction imaginable and tousled enough to look like he lost a fight with static electricity. The freckles on his face and chest look absolutely radiant in the rosy light of early dawn, and his skin as a whole has a healthy sheen. He looks safe, content, and the sight of it eases all the tension from Brian’s system. This is how things are supposed to be.
Dexter’s eyebrows aren’t furrowed with concentration, the way they so often are when he’s struggling to come up with answers, and it’s such a relief that he can let the stress of the Bay Harbor Butcher case go, if only for a couple moments. Likewise, the worry lines that have traced grooves in his skin have smoothed out to nonexistence in the respite of sleep, and Brian wants to trace all the lines of his face to make certain of it. (Maybe count all the freckles on him to get a better idea what his grown-up baby brother looks like.) Then, Brian freezes as a thought occurs to him. Wait. He can do that!
Because Dexter, in his continued mercy towards his older brother, has finally removed the cuffs from his wrists and ankles, though Brian will still be locked in the bedroom. To be frank, it’s not like the cuffs were the be-all end-all for his imprisonment. He’s broken out half a dozen times by breaking his hands and feet to squeeze them through the space of the cuffs. The reasons have varied from attempting to escape to trying to get into the closet or under the bed when he heard his brother bring Rita—or that bitch Lila—home. (Most of the time, he’s so barely conscious that he passes out in his hiding spot and misses the entire interaction.) Fortunately, the latter (Lila-at-their-place) only happened once, and they spent more of their time at her flat. But the gesture is greatly appreciated, nonetheless. Now, he gets to use the treadmill whenever he wants, and that will be a great help to his fractured and strained sanity.
So, Brian lifts one of his now-unbound hands and cups his brother’s sleeping face as gently as he can. Dexter doesn’t respond to the touch, positively or negatively, so he brushes his thumb along the line of his cheekbones in an affectionate manner that will go unnoticed by the man. But that’s okay with him. He’s always preferred small, quiet gestures of affection to the grand stuff—the latter (though his heart practically exploded in his chest when Dexter said he was real around him) tends to feel more artificial. Little acts—squeezing someone’s hand or making their favorite meal after a hard day or curling up beside them—are natural and organic, they’re harder to be faked, because they happen so often. They’re constant, little reminders that you are loved, that you are cared for. All the big stuff—proposals and parties and grand declarations—are so clearly planned and thought over. They’re thought about, and that makes them easier to fake.
But he doesn’t have to worry about that with Dexter. There is no lying between them, not since Dexter remembered their connections and the truth came out between them. They accept the other as they are, flaws and all. They love each other, trust each other, and that means everything to him.
There’s a shift in the blankets, and the legs tangled with his own move for the first time. One of his brother’s hands reaches up to scrub the sleep from his eyes, and Brian pulls his hands away to give him space. Dexter, sleepy and disoriented and gorgeous, gives him an affectionate look, and he’s utterly complete in that moment.
“Good morning, Dex.” He murmurs, pressing his lips to his brother’s forehead.
“G’morning, Biney.” Dexter replies, and he smiles in response.