Chapter Text
Dexter Morgan hates funerals.
He doesn’t mind the black, the formal clothes—hell, he can admit that the free food is nice—but the rest? All the well-wishers and mourners with their hugs and their “I’m so sorry for your loss”s set his teeth on edge, and even his sister feels more like an alien today than she normally does.
Because this isn’t fun Deb or moody Deb or swearing-like-a-sailor Deb—the thirteen-year-old standing beside him, shoulders hunched inward and eyes rimmed red…this is sad Deb, crying Deb, I-just-lost-my-mother Deb, and Dexter doesn’t know how to deal with her. (He doesn’t know how to deal with any of this.)
He looks to Harry for guidance, but his foster father is affected by the same affliction as his sister. It presses down, that cold, dark monster called grief, hanging around in the church like some kind of invisible mist that seems to touch everyone except Dexter. (There’s a different monster inside of him.) He doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t know how to fake it, either.
Dexter quickly looks away. (It feels…wrong, to see Harry like this. Unsettling, maybe. He doesn’t like the reminder that for all he looks up to Harry, the man is vulnerable in the same ways as anybody else.)
Of course, he liked Mom. He wishes that she didn’t get sick, that she didn’t die, but she did, and there’s no changing that, so what’s the point of crying about it? It sucks—he gets it—but does everyone really feel this strongly? What does it even feel like?
Dexter sighs, quiet and frustrated. Grief is beyond him.
A small hand grabs his own, and he startles, looking down to the girl it belongs to. Debra stares up at him. Her bright, teary eyes are so searching and expectant, and Dexter’s lips twitch uncomfortably under the scrutiny. What does she want from him? Whatever it is, she won’t find it. Her brother is empty, hollow. Pretending to be human. (Pretending badly.)
“I hate it,” he whispers finally, because he can give her that at least. He does hate it—the funeral, the grief, the pretending. He hates that Mom is dead and everyone is acting weird and his life will be different now. (He’s always hated change.)
He must have done something right, because Deb just squeezes his hand tighter and shifts her weight to lean against his arm. Dexter lets her. He glances once more at Harry, but the man never looks his way.
(Harry looks…bad. Devastated. And Dexter is alone in a way that he’s never been before.)
He sighs again.
Harry hasn’t taken him hunting yet this week, and Dexter’s hands itch for a gun, for a knife. He pictures blood soaking the ground beneath the slit throat of a dying deer—in his mind, the deer turns into that priest guy who’s still standing by the altar, blabbering about Heaven and God’s plan and Jesus Christ. Imaginary-Dexter drives his knife into the man’s heart, and blood spurts from his lips as he goes blessedly silent.
Dexter blinks, finds himself breathing slightly faster. He really really wants to kill something. (Or someone.)
He squeezes his sister’s hand to ground himself. He looks at Harry again.
Dexter wants his dad to look back, to read his mind and give him one of those sharp, disapproving looks he’s so good at. But he doesn’t—Harry stands there like a mournful statue, and Dexter grits his teeth and raises his left hand discreetly to the side of his throat, feeling the steady thu-thump thu-thump thu-thump of his own blood rushing through arteries and veins and capillaries.
The priest drones on.
Dexter will go hunting soon. For now, the deer will be enough. (They have to be.)
He thought everything would get easier after the service ended and they went back home. Fewer people around to watch him, fewer eyes to notice the cracks in his mask.
(How terribly wrong he was.)
Now, his audience is down to one, but he lives with her, and she’s no longer kept quiet by the funeral rites and familiar strangers. Debra is clinging to his arm like she’ll drown if she lets go, and it takes all of Dexter’s dubious self control not to make her let go. He doesn’t like feeling trapped like this, but Harry’s right there, and hurting Deb is bad, even if it’s just a little.
“It’s getting late,” Dexter says, though it’s barely eight. “Why don’t you get ready for bed?”
Debra’s face scrunches up, and for a moment it looks like she’s about to either cry or scream—mercifully, she does neither. She doesn’t mention how early it still is. Her claw-like hands release his arm at last, and she disappears into the bathroom without a word. The door clicks shut, the light turns on.
Dexter sighs. (Relief. There’s no more need to pretend.)
“Can we go hunting tomorrow?” he asks.
“Jesus, Dexter,” Harry snaps, looking at him like he just remembered what a monster Dexter is. “Can’t it wait?”
No, Dexter thinks.
“Okay,” he says, then flees to his room before he can do something stupid like punch Harry in the face.
(He wonders if this is how Deb feels when Harry doesn’t give her enough attention. Dexter doesn’t like it either, but he doesn’t know how to compete with the grief of a dead wife.)
Dexter flops onto his bed in an imitation of a sullen teen.
He knows he fucked up—he sounded too eager. And he should have waited longer. Harry’s…not himself, right now. But while Doris Morgan’s funeral was today, she died a few days ago and she’d been dying for months before that. Dexter’s over it already. He’s moving on—because what else is there to do?—and that’s not normal.
(Dexter thinks he’s rather sick of what’s normal.)
He emerges two hours later to a dark and empty living room.
All the lights are off, even the bedrooms—Harry and Deb are either asleep or trying to be. Dexter doesn’t think either of them ate anything, but death has never killed his appetite before. He finds that his mom’s death is no different.
Dexter pulls open the fridge and stares at its contents, squinting as the light flickers on. The shelves are packed with donated food, and he grabs a half-eaten casserole without much thought. He grabs a fork next, pacing across the shadowy kitchen, and digs straight in without bothering to heat it up.
It tastes…fine, if a bit soggy.
It’s food, at least.
(He’s going to miss Mom’s cooking. He can tell already.)
Later, he finds himself outside.
He climbs out his bedroom window, climbs onto the roof. Dexter sighs yet again, and this time he’s truly alone. Alone with the night. Alone with the dark. Alone with the shadows of palm trees cast by mingled moonlight and streetlight.
He lies back, arms beneath his head, and nearly falls asleep—he laughs aloud when he realizes it, because how utterly stupid would it be if he rolled off the edge and died of a broken neck? Right after his mom’s funeral, too. Would they rule it a suicide?
They probably would.
They would, but Harry would know better, and Deb would stubbornly believe him, clinging to her vision of a brother who never existed.
Dexter yawns, looks up at the stars. He can barely see any, darned light pollution. (He should probably get some sleep.)
Eventually, he climbs down, and he does.