InsaneJournal

The dark figure in the apartment shifted in the gloom, a broad-shouldered shape dressed in black cotton, hands wrapped in leather gloves. Dexter’s dark passenger was grumbling in the back of his head, shifting uncomfortably and impatiently, already convinced in the guilt of his next victim. But Dexter had a code, a code that had to be honored, and even when the passenger was sure he had to make absolutely certain. So here he was. Good, honest Dexter, making absolutely certain before he did anything... rash.

If he had been capable of feeling, he might have felt bad about this. Tessa had been something that people may have called a friend. They ate together, had coffee. Did mundane, boring things that the humans did to pass away the meaningless hours of their lives. Dexter had never been very good at that kind of thing, but he was quite sure she liked his company. To him, she was part of his disguise, a very good part if he said so himself. But these things happened. It was a shame, but there you go. Perhaps Tessa had constructed as elaborate and perfect a mask as he had. All that was needed was that last piece of evidence, and then things could progress and they could all be finished and tied up in bags at the bottom of the lake before breakfast.

Dexter’s gloved hand passed over the side, examining the trinkets that adorned the surface. It wasn’t as if she’d have a gallery of her victims hung up on the wall. Although you’d be surprised how often that happened. It did make things easier. And the patients Tessa saw at the hospital did seem to have a curious habit of dying... The first spot of blood on Dexter’s slides had belonged to a nurse who had overdosed her patients, had tried to do just that to Harry. She’d met a rather messy end on teenaged Dexter’s table. A bit of a hack job, but everyone had to start somewhere. In a way it was rather nice. A full circle.

Then, just as he was pulling open a drawer, there was the sound of a key in the lock. Dexter froze, hand curled around the handle, before he quickly shut it and strode to tuck his frame away in a corner, letting the shadows swallow him.

Tessa had been let off of her shift early that night--or, rather, that morning--and was glad to have gotten home with almost no detours along the way. She’d put in so much overtime since Christmas, doing her real job, and then un-reaping everyone who’d bargained to return to life, that she had been spending most of her free time just sleeping, thanks to her new ability to hold a corporeal form. It was something of a promotion, she supposed, but as usual, the reward for a job well done was more work, and more responsibility.

She’d never needed to socialize before, or maintain any semblance of normalcy, because no one ever saw her but those who had already died, or were near death--and those few with psychic abilities that allowed them to see ghosts. It could be, quite frankly, exhausting.

She was a little slow getting her key in the lock, thinking of the dog that she had acquired and then misplaced since her arrival in Colligo. He’d gotten lose during the toclaphane invasion, and she hadn’t yet had time to find him again. If the animal had even survived. It surprised her, but she actually missed him.

She didn’t notice anything amiss until she’d entered the apartment, heading straight for the shower, and sensed, rather than saw a deeper darkness in the shadows that didn’t quite fit. Something just felt....wrong. She paused, stretching out her senses as she reached for a light switch, then let her hand drop in favor of letting her eyes adjust. “Show yourself.”

Dexter stood, merged in the shadows, as Tessa came in. She didn’t look much like a killer, but then he knew better than anyone that people were often not what they seemed. In a single, fluid motion, the mans hand slipped into his back pocket, fishing a syringe out and carefully unplugging the cap with his teeth, letting that fall back into his free hand and back into his pocket. But if he was completely honest, there wasn’t too far you could go when you were trapped in a corner. He shouldn’t have gone for the corner. If there were any manners anywhere, she would have given him time to find a better hiding place - wasn’t that what friends were for?

Still, as much as he hated judging anyone, he didn’t think the dark haired, slender form of Tessa would pose much of a threat. If he was looking at her victims, or should he say potential victims, because everyone was innocent before proven guilty, they were all on the frail side anyway. He doubted she’d be the kind to suddenly knock him out with a well-placed roundhouse kick. She wasn’t Debra.

So Dexter stepped out from the shadows, dressed in his black, his face for once not bothering with his mask but falling instead into its usual blank expression. Empty. Hollow. Like the rest of him. The needle was held expertly between his gloved hands as he stared at her. No need for the human disguise now, anyway. He was almost certainly about to make her his number fifty one.

“Dex.” Tessa’s tone fell flat, just shy of disappointment as she recognized him, and realized that his own mask of normalcy had fallen away. She had thought she’d felt some kind of spark of connection inside him when they’d first met, but it was gone now, replaced with a smoldering darkness. “What are you doing here?”

Dexter didn’t reply. Usually he preferred to just pounce from behind, get the needle neatly into the throat and have them out for the count and ready to wake up, all tied up all nice and tight. But that was a little difficult in this situation, because Tessa was facing him and had recognized his face. But it had to be done. He just had to try to keep it from getting too messy or loud and alerting anyone living nearby. So Dex didn’t speak, just strode readily across the room, needle glinting in the limited light, dark passenger growling at the back of his head with increasing volume and ferocity.

But Dexter wasn’t anticipating her to react, least of all try and fight back. This was the problem with trying to turn the defender onto people you thought you knew - it was so, so easy to be wrong. Especially when you had as much trouble reading and understanding people as he did. After all, he’d been surprised by her before - who’d have thought Tessa would have been so similar to him? She was a very good hider, he’d give her that much. A murderous, treacherous hider. God, it was such a shame how often he had to do this to people so like himself. He could have created some kind of club.

Dexter strode across the room in less than three strides, lifting the needle brimming with clear and potentially deadly sedative.

Tessa’s eyes widened at the glint of the needle. He was stalking her, she realized in an instant, and not only that, but he was organized. He’d come prepared. But for what?

She counted his stride, his feet falling in sync with the pounding of her own heart--or so she imagined. She drew in a deep, steadying breath, stepping toward him and to one side as he raised the syringe. She hadn’t been spending so much time with Dean just for the sex, and she struck out at Dexter’s arm with the outside ridge of her hand, aiming for a pressure point, intending not only to throw off his aim, but also to grab his wrist and control the hand with the syringe. “Dex! Stop it. Listen to me!”

Dexter made an odd ‘offtt’ noise of surprise as Tessa’s blow hit home, his fingers uncurling without his permission and sending his clean, neat needle falling to the carpet with a muffled clink. Automatically, the man reached out with a foot, trying to knock the needle aside in case it got broken - those things didn’t come cheap when you had to go through certain channels to get them. Dexter couldn’t help but be detached and practical even in this situation, wasn’t emotional enough to feel anything enough. He just wasn’t capable of it.

He froze when she latched onto him, looking her straight in the eye with one eyebrow raised coolly. He could probably still throw her off, he pondered. He was a lot bigger and stronger. But then she’d run, as humans were likely to do. Run and hide or open her mouth and report him to whatever passed as authority in this place, which would be a terrible hassle because he couldn’t even leave this place. He’d have to live under a bridge or something, and that would just be humiliating for a creature such as himself and his passenger.

Still, Dexter still didn’t speak, just stared Tessa down with empty eyes and a perfect mimicry of amusement splashed over his features, although the emotion couldn’t run any deeper. Perhaps she would confess everything in an attempt to ‘make him understand’, unaware as she was that Dexter did understand. Only too well.

She knew he could easily reverse the hold and overpower her, probably hurt her pretty badly if he wanted to. It almost surprised her when he didn’t, but she didn’t let go. Her eyes narrowed at the feigned amusement, and she let out a chuff of breath, her head tilting to one side as her lips curled up in genuine annoyance.

“What are you looking at?” she asked, twisting his arm for emphasis, and jerked her head at the needle on the floor. “You’re the one who broke into my apartment, ready to shoot first and ask questions later. I’m the one who should be demanding an explanation. Instead, I’m offering to answer your questions as a professional courtesy.”

A sharp arrow of pain shot up Dexter’s arm, and he frowned. Of course, friendship only went so far. Of course breaking into a persons home to have a look around with an armed needle would turn out to be one of those lines best friends shouldn’t cross. But then it was alright for a bunch of them to put a bag over a mans head and tie him up in order to transport them to his bachelor party. Was it any wonder these things didn’t make any sense to him?

Still. He was probably going to kill her anyway, He might as well humor her. He still needed that confession, even if the noise in the back of his head had increased its howling to an almost unbearable volume.

“Your patients,” he told her, “they don’t live very long, do they?” There was a heavy pause, “You know, this is very uncomfortable.”

Tessa wouldn’t have appreciated being kidnapped for a bachelorette party any more than she had appreciated being kidnapped in order to be made into a ritual sacrifice, but then, that was Tessa. She’d observed humanity long enough to know they didn’t always make sense, even to themselves.

She shook her head, releasing Dex’ arm with a sigh, taking a step toward the syringe. She didn’t want to make it too easy for him to snatch it up and try for her again. “You do realize that most of them are hospice patients?” she asked, as if that would explain something. “It’s not like I go around snatching babies from the nursery.” Though there was that one preemie in the NICU. And the man who’d survived being knifed by a junkie, whom Tessa had also reaped, only to die in the hospital of complications. Come to think of it, things did look pretty bad for the reaper.

“You think you have me all figured out, huh? You’re stalking me? How long?”

“Most of them,” Dexter agreed, a faint note of something close to amusement suddenly linking his words. Because, bless her, even in a hospice you didn’t get the kind of bad luck she seemed to be getting. He didn’t know why it had taken him so long to notice it - perhaps he’d been too wrapped up in his own business. Polite, happy little Dexter, bobbing along in his own murderous bubble until it had happened to collide with Tessa’s.

“Long enough,” he replied. Suitably vague, if a little melodramatic. There had been a bit of a rush on in his particular hobby during the alien invasion - it was remarkable how people could take advantage to people being stabbed left, right and centre. But he’d noticed before then. it took time to check these things. Especially when you didn’t have the luxury of Miami police checks available at every whim. “You could just tell me,” he offered, his voice almost charming. Dexter liked to think of himself as a bit like those birds which could mimic other birdcalls - there were a range of masked emotions available for his words. “I might be able to help. We might help each other.”

“Tell you what?” she asked, crossing her arms. If he had her figured out, shouldn’t he be able to lay it all out for her, like Sherlock or Poirot? The dramatic reveal? But it was fairly obvious now that he probably hadn’t quite figured it all out, because they’d both been too busy pretending to be normal. And then there was the invasion.

“I have a list, okay?” she said, heaving a sigh. How many times had she explained this now, to hunters who got a little overzealous? Dexter certainly wasn’t the first to think she needed to be done away with. “I won’t play games with you if you don’t play games with me, but this is going to sound a little crazy, so you might want to sit down.”

There was a relief of pressure on Dexter’s arm, and suddenly he had free reign of his own limb again. Which was nice. Shaking out the suddenly cramping muscle in his broad shoulder, Dexter’s gaze flickered automatically to the syringe on the floor. But there was no use trying to go for it now - she’d expect that. Humans were terribly predictable sometimes, even if they had just managed to get one over on you. Which was embarrassing, really. He just hoped his sister would never find out.

And a list... That was intriguing. That hinted at a system, which was good. He was always eager to hear about his fellow hunters techniques. They all had a pattern, really. A ritual. And you were never too old to learn something. For a moment Dex wrestled with himself, his curiosity and his code vying for first place in his priorities. But then something won, and he shrugged carelessly and slowly, never taking his eyes off the woman before him, moved back to sink onto a seat at the edge of the sofa. Dexter, serial killer and sociopath, sat on a sofa like he was about to be offered a cup of tea and a cookie. How perfectly ridiculous.

Tessa had been thinking about offering him a beer, just to rub it in, but she thought better of it. She also remained semi-standing, leaning against the arm of the chair kitty-corner to him. The syringe remained on the floor--a fact which probably had both of them itching. She ignored it for now, instead keeping her eyes on Dexter.

“I have a list of people whose number is up,” she said again, “But I’m not the one who kills them. I’m just...the ferryman.”

Ferryman. What did that mean? Two gold coins in exchange for a trip over a river? It was entirely possible, in a place such as this, but Dexter couldn’t help but let his painfully logical brain go for the most obvious option. Which was that someone else did the actual killing and Tessa was just the person charged with selection and collection. His face carefully rearranged itself into a mildly disbelieving expression, eyebrows raised, smile curling at the corners of his mouth.

There were a hundred questions Dex could have asked then, and he picked the first one that his brain offered up.

“How do you make the list?”

Tessa tried not to laugh as she watched the wheels of Dexter’s mind start spinning, waiting for something to click. His reaction take was nearly flawless, but she knew it was just his way of prompting her to keep talking. As if she needed prompting. If he wanted to pick her brain, she certainly didn’t mind picking apart whatever little theory he had going about her.

“I don’t make the list,” she said, “My boss makes the list. I follow it.” She said boss but she could just as easily have said father. She decided to see if she could throw a wrench in the cogs, but kept her face neutral as she added, “Death touches everyone sooner or later. It’s the natural order.”

Oh, fantastic. Now he was being quotes some sentimental rubbish about the natural order. Survival of the fittest, was that what this was? “Oh, I know that.” After all, if there was anyone who knew that death came to everyone, it was Dexter. Even though he’d done a rather good job of skirting that particular eventuality for the last thirty years, he’d shoved fifty other people ahead of him in the queue. If he tallied himself up against the great killers in US history, he was almost certainly in the top ten when it came to sheer numbers. He was rather proud of that.

“Who’s your boss?” he asked. Might as well cut to the chase. Perhaps he was chasing down the wrong person. Robin rather than Batman. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened...

Now it was Tessa’s turn to wear the semi-amused smile. Nobody ever liked hearing the ‘natural order’ spiel. It was much easier when she could just kiss them and reinsert their memories of who and what she was--but that wasn’t really an option in this case. Even if it were, she doubted it would have gone over well with Dexter.

“I just told you. Death. I’m not being metaphorical here. Would it help if I had on a black, hooded robe and a scythe?”

Dexter stared at her. He wasn’t upset or hurt, just confused. He rather wished he was back in Miami, where people were mad and couldn’t drive but at least there weren’t so many classes of people he wasn’t sure what was what any more. Back at home there were bad people and good people and people who were balanced precariously in the middle, who would eventually make one decision which would push them to one side or the other. Here... even that seemed simple compared to here.

“That... doesn’t make any sense,” he told her, with all the patience of a saint. And all things considered, he thought he was being rather saint-like in this situation. One point for good Dexter. He hadn’t even killed her or drugged her or anything. Although was that a good thing?

Tessa sighed, resisting the urge to roll her eyes, and hardly daring to blink in case the dark defender’s patience began to wear as thin as her own. Clearly, the analogies weren’t working. She was going to have to go for something a little less vague.

“I’m not human.”

Well, that was new. Dexter stared at her for a moment, trying to process that particular bombshell. Of course, anywhere else that would have been a ridiculous thing to say. But this was Colligo. People here turned out to be aliens and angels and vampires and God knew what else every day of the week. But still, even if it was true, it seemed like the kind of thing someone should have mentioned before. Like, ‘Oh, I have two brothers, I’m allergic to peanuts and... oh, I’m not human.’ But no. Apparently common courtesies like that didn’t extend to their strange little city full of kidnapped people floating through deep space.

Dexter’s expression didn’t flicker as he thought all this. He just looked at her, mask long since discarded and just a blank stare remaining. Then, finally, he slumped back a little from his position perched on the edge of the sofa. After all, who even said his sedative would work on her? It certainly threw his plans for a loop. Dex didn’t question the fact that Tessa might be lying. He lied enough to be able to spot it in other people. Or other... whatever she was.

“Then what are you?”

He couldn’t help but feel like he was missing the big picture here somehow, but Dexter’s brilliant mind was still playing catch up today, and he was left with this sluggish, useless pile of fluff that was apparently occupying his skull.

Blankness. That was all she saw when she tried to read his face now, though there was a niggling sense of wheels spinning in a miry bog. But that might have been Tessa feeling that herself. They weren’t getting very far, very fast.

Should she feel guilty? It wasn’t as if she’d ever told him her life story. Or lied to him outright. She worked in hospitals, sure, but she’d never even given him more than her first name--because she didn’t exactly have a last name to give him. She did have other names, in other cultures, and other languages...but it wasn’t the same.

“I’m a reaper,” she said, “I collect the souls of those who die, and ferry them into the next life.” It sounded like crazy talk. She was sure of it. But there wasn’t really any other way to say it. “It’s easier if I show you. May I?”

Dexter sniffed, settling back fully in the sofa, one eyebrow quirking a little. A reaper. As in ‘Don’t fear the...’? And if that was what she was, did she know about him? Dexter had sent a good few souls her way, after all. Was it too much to think she might have picked a few up? How many of them could be working this city? And this was much too confusing to think about without at least a pen and paper to make notes.

Dex shrugged his broad shoulders from his new relaxed position against the cushions, raising a hand in a ‘be my guest’ type gesture. “Please. Go ahead.” After all, manners cost nothing. And he was politely intrigued to see what would happen next.

Tessa crossed the carpet without further hesitation, reaching out and placing the tips of her first two fingers in the center of Dexter’s forehead. As she did, she conjured up her memories of the past several months in Colligo, projecting them into his mind. It was a montage of death; natural causes, zombie victims, the toclaphane, people passing peacefully in their sleep of old age--and yes--there was even some of Dexter’s handiwork in there. Each of them had been on Tessa’s list--Death’s list--and each time she had been there, whether in body or in spirit, to usher them to their final destination.

She released him, stepping back and folding her arms across her chest, allowing him to process what he had just seen. Waiting to see how he would respond.

Dexter almost flinched back as she reached out to touch him, but then there were two points of contact in the centre of his forehead, which must have looked bloody ridiculous. That thought had barely formed by the time the images were running through his skull. Death, a lot of death. Some beautiful images of cold, dead and perfect flesh. A few familiar flashes of his own work. Dexter was on his feet the second she pulled back, staring across at her with something dangerously close to emotion, his eyes wide. Of course, he’d believed her, but that was different to having it forced down his throat. Dex cleared his throat smoothly, closing his eyes for a moment to give himself a chance to recover, letting his thoughts sink back into their normal calm, emotionless peace.

“Well...” He opened his eyes. “Forgive me. I seem to have got the wrong end of the metaphorical stick here.” His gaze flickered down to the syringe still lying abandoned on the carpet. He probably couldn’t use that at all now. It was hardly hygienic. Although how much could that really matter when you considered what he had been planning to do to the recipient. Dexter remembered the pictures that had flashed through his skull, and his gaze was on Tessa again. “What do you know about me?”

That, after all, was the vital question.

Tessa felt a smug sort of satisfaction as Dexter came to his feet, the almost-emotion written across his face for her to read, but she tamped it down. It wouldn’t do if the boss got word she was getting a swell head. She had no doubt that he could still find ways to discipline her, even in Colligo. Death had a thing about manners, decorum, and doling out life-lessons. Funny, that.

“What’s to forgive?” she asked Dexter with a shrug. “I know I didn’t exactly lie to you, but I sure as hell circumnavigated the whole truth.”

She met his next question with a level gaze--not an easy feat when he was head and shoulders taller than her, but she pulled it off. “Only what I need to know.”

“And... what do you need to know?” Dexter prompted. Because he really had no idea and he’d rather like to be aware of exactly what it was people knew about him. You know, to stop him getting killed or locked up and all the rest. He had no doubt Death, or whoever passed for him in this crazy place, was all too aware of what he did. But how much did the runners get told. And it was a clue as to what kind of person Dexter was, a nod to what he himself had seen, that he was accepting this without much problem. Perhaps that was the dark passenger. Perhaps the creature in his head welcomed people like Tessa. He couldn’t tell you. But he needed to be sure where he stood.

Tessa knew a little bit about a lot of people. Enough to keep herself out of trouble. Considering the fact that Tessa had taken over the role of Death for a time, during her stay in Colligo, she knew quite a lot about Dexter--though some of it was a little fuzzy, thanks to the fickle nature of the City and the powers that be. But that wasn’t what Dexter was really asking, was it?

“I know that every twisted soul you’ve sent me had already sent several others ahead of them,” she said, raising an eyebrow. Everyone he killed was a killer themselves. “You hunt monsters.”

“I am a monster,” Dexter corrected her, calmly. It was true. If he hadn’t had Harry’s code to live by, he was under no delusions he’d have killed countless innocent people by now. That was just a fact, like that the sky was blue or that his sister had a mouth dirtier than any Miami gutter. Dexter eyed Tessa cautiously, still unsure. If she’d known all this time, and she hadn’t turned him into whatever counted as police around here... Well, what did that say about her? As well as him. Perhaps she just had good taste.

“So...” he crossed his arms over his chest, feeling the cold material of his leather clothes through his cotton shirt. “What now?” Social protocol was never his strong point. Did Tessa know about that, he wondered? Did she recognize how empty he was?

“What else?” she asked, leaning on the armchair once more, mirroring his posture. “You catch killers, they die, I reap them.” She could probably give him a list of people that would fit his code, but that might be overstepping her bounds as a neutral party. “Do you want a beer?”

Well, Dexter supposed that was as good a plan as any. it was... odd, having someone who knew what he did. Someone who wasn’t James - who was as wrong and twisted as Dexter himself, and carried around a passenger very similar to himself. Dexter was rather fond of the other killer, or as fond as it was possible for him to be. But Tessa was... not a sociopath. Or even a human. She was something else entirely.

“No, thank you.” Dexter shifted a little uncomfortably, before carefully taking a few steps and slowly picking up the syringe that lay on the floor. Waste not, want not, after all. “I think I should probably just... you know.” He capped the syringe. Even for sensible, logical, calm Dexter, this seemed like something he needed time to get his head around.

“Yeah,” Tessa said, “I know. You think we should probably take a break.” She wrinkled her pert nose at him a little, trying for levity. She supposed he had every right to break up their little friendship, until he’d had time to process. “I can’t say I blame you.”

She shrugged her shoulders, and offered him a slight smile. “You know where to find me.”