...They Don't Wear White

[whedonist]

Chapter 3 - …They Don’t Wear White

I swear if I have to listen to this twerp anymore I’m going to toss him out on his ass. He wakes me up. Wakes Will up. I was cocooned in soft redhead and he comes knocking at nine a.m. to apologize for the dead body. Like he did it. Like he could have prevented it. And sure it’s sweet that he wants to move us and comp the stay…well comp the stay would be good, but move us? For what?

I roll my eyes and put my hand on his shoulder stopping his nervous babbling. “…Ms. Summers I don’t wan…”

“Mr. uhm…” I know he told me his name…

“Cruzado” he supplies kindly.


“Mr. Cruzado, I understand what you’re trying to do, but can I maybe step in with a different suggestion.” I smile the best smile I have – the one reserved for telling people their loved ones are dead – and continue, “My partner and I don’t want to move. We’re comfortable here. But, if you’d like, in exchange for not suing you, you can comp our stay.” I know my grin now resembles a shark about ready to feed, but hey, it’s a free room.

If Will had any idea what this vacation was setting us back, she’d have kittens. Maybe puppies too. I couldn’t pass it up though. It’s not only one of the top rated hotels in Miami. It’s on the beach too. This is a special vacation. So no expense was spared.

He cocks his head to the side. I’m pretty sure he’s confused. He’s got the classic confused look. “So,” he stutters, “sso, you don’t want to move, you won’t sue us and all you want is us to comp the stay?” he finishes off with a bit of wonder in his voice.

I suppress the laugh and urge to dance around in glee. Instead I shrug. “That seems fair.”

The funny – I hear his heart slow down and his breathing regulate. He wipes the nervous sweat from his brow and starts, “I – I think that can be arranged. I’ll just need you and your…”

“Girlfriend works.”

He nods. “Girlfriend to sign a small waiver before you leave.”

I pause and pretend to think it over. “Sure, why not.”

“Well, uhm, well, then I’ll make sure that everything is arranged and leave you and your partner to enjoy the rest of your stay.” He hands me his card before turning to the door and says, “If you should need anything at all, please call or show that to the associate at the front desk.” He flashes what I’m sure cost him thousands in pearly whites and leaves.

Thank God!

I look down at the card and toss it on the kitchen counter. Free room. Free room! Oh, wow! Will’s gonna be so happy. It should make the day a bit better. After the gruesome that was last night, good news will do my doctor good.

It was – last night was just weird. I mean, not new, hey slayer and cop, but it was different. Then with everything else Will was wiggin’ about one of the CSU’s. Said he was giving her funny looks. I’m blowing it off. I told her maybe he just thought she was hot. I mean she is hot, I think so, and well, Willow’s never been good at noticing when someone’s interested in her.

We left the scene early because of him. The bottle of Champagne later, some blissful naughtiness and the ugly was forgotten. Until today. Gonna hafta call the gang and let them know. Whatever killed that girl wasn’t human. I could feel the presence once I walked in. Will musta been on overload. I think maybe vacation’s gonna be cut short.

I enter our bedroom and look to the lump under the covers. Dropping my robe to the floor, I crawl back into bed and mold myself against Willow’s backside. She stirs and asks, “What was that all about?”

“The General Manager wanted to apologize for the dead body,” I whisper in her ear.

“Ah, anything else?”

I kiss her shoulder and back up to her ear mumbling, “We now get to stay here for free.”

“Uh?”

“He was afraid we’d sue. So, in exchange for not suing, he’s comping our stay.”

She turns facing me, confusion clearly written on her features, “Uh, again.”

I kiss the tip of her nose and smirk.

“Buffy…” she warns. Crap. Why does she gotta look at me like that?

I roll my eyes, “Seriously Will. He was all nervous. I guess there’ve been threats. Since we found the body, he wanted to take care of us first. No big. Just free stuff.”

“Really?”

“Really, really.” I smile reassuringly and continue, “So, what are we gonna do about the body?” I know I shouldn’t be asking this, but it needs to be addressed.

Crinkling her nose she ponders the question and I kiss her forehead. She’s too cute when her face goes all scrunchy. “I don’t know. Proly call Dawnie and see if we can get her to send us any information?”

I nod and bury my head in her shoulder. Going on a Scooby expedition wasn’t something planned for this trip. For the rest of my life really. The things I did plan got cocked up last night.

Cocked up? When did I get British?

Anyhow, last night was supposed to be special. It was, in the gory, dead things way. But not in the “Will, I wanna do a ‘commitment’ type thing. Here’s the paperwork for a legally binding domestic partnership. ‘Wanna get hitched’? type way” I planned. The candles, the flowers, the food, and drink. The paperwork’s in my bag. Asking was going to happen last night. Pop THE Question. Instead I get death and missing organs.

Figures.

Now I have to plan the whole thing again. Stupid demons. And it was a demon. I know it. And the major suck: Will and I are gonna hafta do the hunting. Not like we can just let it go.

I continue to melt into the mattress and Willow. This is the place. Excellent, nice, warm, soft…OW! What the…? Did she just ram her finger in my side? I look up at my witch and scowl. I know my scowl has questions, like what was that for and why so hard?

“Buffy, you’re phone,” she says, frowning at me.
Oh. I reach behind me and pick up the stupid thing. The display reads a New York exchange. “Yeah,” I answer.

“Cupcake, that you?” Jimmy’s voice comes through.

“Nope, Jamie Lee Curtis.” I smile. He’s got a thing for her and teasing him about its just fun.

“Kiddo…” he growls.

“Yes,” I sing song and wait.

“What’s goin’ on? How’s the vacation? Did you ask?” his voice drops on the last question. I resist the urge to snark and remind myself that she can’t hear him. I don’t. I’m nice.

While planning the vacation, I let Jimmy in on the what and the why. In fact, he did a lot of the leg work and helped get me the paperwork. He was so excited when I told him. He started to plan a reception even before I did.

“Well, things were going great up until last night.” I leave him with the cryptic. He knew when I was gonna ask.

“She didn’t. I mean, seriously. Cupcake, what’d she say?” his tone’s wicked worried.

I stop stringing him along. “Didn’t. There was an interruption. Will found a dead body.” I look over to Willow as she moves. She mouths the word ‘shower’ and I nod. “Jimmy, hang on.” I give her a kiss and watch her pad naked into the bathroom.

“I’m done hangin’, Cupcake. What do you mean Red found a dead body?” his annoyance at being put on hold apparent.

So I start to explain. I give him enough details and I know he’s writing this down. I can pretty much guarantee I’ll have a copy of the police reports before the end of the day.

---

I walk out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel and look over to Buffy. She’s still on the phone, but now there are some papers spread out in front of her on the bed. The phone’s jammed between her shoulder and ear and she’s looking over…they look like fax papers. Jimmy.

Of course he would, those two together are worse than Starsky and Hutch. I think they also have a better solve rate. He probably got hold of the police reports which is a good. We’re gonna need them.

Slipping a tank top over my head to complete my outfit, I turn back to the bed. Looks like Buffy chose something similar. She’s got shorts and a tank top on and the shorts give you a nice view of her legs.

She looks over at me and mouths ‘sorry’. Her eyes tell a different story. I roll my eyes, smile, lean down and kiss her on top of her head. Mouthing the words ‘Dawn’ and ‘info’, I grab my cell and head for the kitchen.

I know this sounds bad. But, I mean, I was really hoping to get away from the dead things. Even ya know, with the lack of Scoobiage, there’s still dead things. That’s what Buffy deals with daily. I’m going to be looking at them daily soon enough. I just, gosh darn it; I just wanted some time away from the killing. Human or non-human.

Silly to ask for given the running scorecard of my life, but it…it just wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m sure if I tried really hard I could remember all of the dead people and things that I’ve seen. Don’t want to. I also know that if I did, I’ve seen more than nintey-nine point eight percent of the population. It was apparently too much to ask for a few weeks without.

Shifting on the kitchen island stool, I wait for Dawn to pick up. It’s not late enough for her to be asleep. Hopefully.

“Hello?” Dawn’s voice is rushed as she answers.

“Dawnie.”

“Willow!” she takes on an excited tone and I hear her talk to someone in the background, “excuse me for a minute. It’s my…uh, it’s my sister type person.”

I shake my head and wait for her to get some place more private. The background noise lessens and I hear a toilet flush. Thanks Dawn. Bathroom talk is just what I need. Criminey.

“Will, how’s it going? What’s going on? Vacation? I thought you guys were supposed to be spending a month in Miami?” Her rapid fire questions punctuated with a stall door slamming in the background.

“I’m the babbler of the family Dawn, give it back,” I joke and can nearly hear the smile.

“You are, but…uhm, any news you want to tell me?” she asks really hopeful and it causes me to pause. What news would I have to tell her? Does she know? Who told her?

“I was calling for help. Is there news I need to know?”

“Nope,” she quickly answers. “You need help. What can I do?” Why does she sound…she - worry about it later. Demon, dead things, missing organs.

“Buffy and I found a dead girl last night. Demon related and I need some info since I’m sans books.” I go over the details of what I remember and enough for her to go on for now. She ‘hmms’ and asks questions during my explanation.

“I think I have everything. Call me if you get more info.” She pauses like she wants to say something. It’s one of those pregnant silences that begin to turn uncomfortable. She salvages it by saying, “If you, uhm, if this is going to ruin anything, why don’t I send a team down there? There’s a group in Myrtle Beach that’s stationed permanently, they could take care of this.”

“That’s sweet, but we’ve already met the local cops. I think it’d just be easier for us to handle it from here.”

“I gotcha. Uhm, so how is everything else going?”

“Great up until last night. The beaches are nice. The people are, uhm, well; I think I prefer New Yorkers actually. But, oh, Dawn, we need to come here together, there’s this restaurant that I took Buffy to last night, and it’s…the desert is this chocolate fountain type thing. So tasty.”

“You said the magic words, chocolate and fountain. Anything else? How’s Buffy? You two are…?”

Okay, uh, this is … “No, nothing else, you’re sister’s good and we’re good.” There’s something she’s not telling me. I just know it. She’s also worse at keeping secrets than me. Let’s see if I can put two and two together, she sounds slightly worried, consistently asking for more news other than the dead stuff, what is she trying not to say? Darn it, I know I’m missing something. “You wanna talk to Buffy?”
“Yeah,” she sounds relieved. I walk into the bedroom just as she is walking towards the door.

“It’s Dawn,” I say handing her the phone.

She laughs and hands me hers, “Jimmy wants to talk to you.”

Sometimes it’s just scary weird. “Hi, Jimmy.” I smile into the phone.

“Red, I’m not gonna let you leave the state of New York if this keeps up.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault,” I pout.

“I know Red. How is everything else?”

“It’s good. Or it was. If we can get this figured before the end of the week, I’ll be lots happier.”

“I get that kid, I told your old lady that if you two want, I’ll take a leave and come down to help out. Just let me know.”

“Jimmy, it’s not, we’ll be fine. One little demon won’t hurt us. Besides didn’t you tell me you hated Miami?”

“I did, but I can make exceptions.”

Where’d Buffy go? I look towards the bathroom door and its shut. Hmm… “We’ll be fine. How are you?”

“Okay, I can’t cook to save my Irish ass and Vice is worse than foot work.” I lounge on the bed careful not to disturb some of the papers lying on top of the covers. “I got pulled into this small Sting OP for Friday night. Let’s just say it went to shit faster than it takes Cupcake to eat a slice of pizza.”

“You’re not…? They didn’t get you hurt?” They get him damaged before we get back Buffy’s gonna kill, well, okay not kill, but she’ll hurt I know that much.
“Nah, I’m good. Only a little nick.”

“Jimmy…”

“A nick, a scratch. That’s all. No bullet holes or heart attacks or knife wounds. Oh, and you two’d be so proud, one of the ladies on the team wants to have dinner with me.”

I gape. “You and a date?”

He laughs and says, “Yeah, the old fart’s gotta date. Don’t tell Buffy though, she’ll make me wait till yinz get back.”

I nod knowingly. The last date he had, Buffy insisted that she meet her prior to Jimmy taking her out. She was insistent to check for the possibility of evilness. “I won’t say a word, but she’s human right? Non-evil human?”

“Non-evil human. Yeah, I asked your questions.”

“Oh goody, then you’re gonna have to tell me how it went.”

I hear someone in the background call his name and know what’s coming. “Heya Red, I gotta motor. Tell Cupcake I said bye.”

“Will do. Jimmy, wait! Be careful please?” I hope my tone conveys my message. While it’s not like I distrust everyone else, I also know that Buffy, she takes care of her people. She takes care of her people lots better than anyone else would take care of them. If something happened to him, well, I’m not sure how either of us would deal.

The smile he wears comes through as he says, “I’m good kiddo, I’ve got a few people to watch my six until the blonde one comes back. You be careful too, okay?”

“Promise. Love you, Jimmy.”

I hear a voice boom in the background, “Jimmy if that’s one of your girlfriends tell her she can talk dirty to you later. Move!” Jimmy tries to cover the receiver with his hand and yells back, “Hey Copowski, blow it the fuck out your ass. I’ll be there in a minute!”

“Red, I gotta…ditto on the last part. Take care of short stuff,” he says then the line goes dead.

For some reason, I’m missing New York.

---

Now you should be able to type any blood given a large enough sample. So why is it that I’ve got a fair sample amount, but am unable to type it? Three hours sitting here sorting through the blood from the hotel and ‘Dogged Dexter’ is about ready to throw in the towel. I push back from my lab table and rub my eyes. The samples that were collected were done so properly.

I checked everything three times for contamination and still, I come up empty handed. Pressing my index finger and thumb to my eyes, I try and regroup. It’s been an interesting morning and it seems to want to continue.

After I left the scene last night, I was almost distracted enough by the two witnesses that I nearly forgot about my parted plumber in the back seat. By the time I got home, the sun was coming up and I needed to get to work. It was, after all, my turn to bring the doughnuts. As soon as I stepped into the office, Deb grabbed me and dragged me to Lieutenant Pascal’s task force meeting on the new body. Metro Dade’s had a rash of serial killers so she was taking this very seriously.

The meeting boiled down to nothing. They didn’t know anything and they weren’t coming up with anything. The first victim couldn’t be identified and the second one hasn’t made it through the system far enough. I yawned and faked interest for the hour Deb kept me there.

After the task force, I went back to my lab and now here I am, stuck. Rolling over to my desk I look over the notes Deb gave me. We talked a little about the witnesses. A Buffy Summers and Willow Rosenberg. The interesting part is that they are on vacation and Buffy herself is a Detective for the N.Y.P.D.

While that could explain some of the detachment I witnessed last night, the tickle in the back of my mind thinks otherwise. I look over what Deb gave me for Willow and there’s nothing unusual about it. Contact information.

Let’s refocus, I have two different blood samples and one I can’t type. This is going to be a challenge. If I didn’t know better, I would say it wasn’t human. Now Dexter, let’s be serious. While there are monsters around, there aren’t real monsters. Aliens perhaps?

Yes, I can see it now. Lt. Pascal I’ve got your killer. It’s an alien from Alpha Centauri come to collect vital organs from human beings. It may just be worth it for the look. Maybe it’s just a corrupted sample. In that case, I’m required to go and collect more samples.

I perk up at the thought. Now, that might hold some potential. But before ‘Dedicated Dexter’ decides to go to the hotel, let’s see if ‘Dexter Determined’ can find out anything about the two ladies that have stirred ‘The Dark One’.

Powering up my machine, I begin my search. The information is fairly standard as I begin. Detective Summers is quite the decorated officer. Impressive even by my standards. She and Ms. Rosenberg own a house together. So then I will assume that they are more than just friends enjoying the toned tummy’s that Miami Beach has to offer. Explains the close proximity.

Sunnydale, California…well, now that’s…what happened to that town? Ah yes, fault line caused it to become a hole. As I understand it now, the government is using it as a landfill. They were both residents of.

Yes, now this is more like it. I glance up at the clock and realize that it’s taken me longer to dig than what I had anticipated. Their records were buried pretty thoroughly. I hit print and let the computer print out arrest records on Buffy Summers. Willow Rosenberg didn’t have near as much in her files, but her association with the good officer is enough for me.

‘Buffy the Teen’ was wanted under suspicion for three murders and cleared each time. Willow was questioned all three times and she even has a few disparaging remarks and inquires regarding her use of computers. These two aren’t as clean as they appear. My obedient beast snickers and urges me to look closer. He is rarely ever wrong when it comes to these matters.
But what do I know and what is it that I’m suspecting them of? So they may just be fiends like me. They don’t live and prey in my area. They live elsewhere. What would it matter? I try to convince myself that it doesn’t. That I shouldn’t concern myself. But last night. It sits like a weight and I know I have to. If they are, then they might be involved in what is happening with these other ladies.

I look at the note pad and realize that the times line up well. They arrived in Miami the day before the first victim was found. The second victim they found. They didn’t act right at the scene. If it were possible to spook me, I think Willow did.

Is that what this is? Am I getting carried away because I, ‘Dispassionate Dexter’, felt a stirring, a challenge as the redhead met my gaze? Why?

I knew, I don’t want to know, but I do know. I’ve been challenged once before. The Ice Truck Killer. He was – it started with a hooker. They found her chopped up and bloodless. That’s what started it. No blood. While I do what I do, I have a thing with blood. I hate it. And the Ice Truck Killer, Brian Moser, used it against me. He challenged me and in the end, I found out why.

He caused me to go on an excursion to the dark depths of Dexter’s past. I found out what happened to my mother. I found out why I am the way I am.

You see, ‘Dearest Dexter’ at the tender age of three was forced to watch a man take a chainsaw to his mother. I was found in a shipment container sitting in a pool of my mother’s blood. Harry found me. Harry adopted me. It was at the tender age of three, ‘Demon Dexter’ was born.

What I didn’t know was that I had a brother and Brian Moser was it. My biological brother. My heart soared with the knowledge when I found out. Someone like me. Someone I could share my evil escapades with. He understood and oh, how I needed that understanding.

He challenged me to find everything out. In the end, he pushed too far. He kidnapped Debra. His gift to me was to be her death. He wanted us to kill her together. While I don’t love Debra, I do feel affection for her. She’s the last true tie to Harry that I have. She is my sister even if we are not bound by blood.

In the end, it was Brian who fell under my knife and my truer self was exposed to my pseudo-sibling. Deb found out just how dark her beloved brother was. The fall out was – it was unpleasant, but she finally understood. We don’t talk of it much. But she knows and just her knowing has lifted a weight from my shoulders I didn’t know existed.

Brian freed me.

That’s what he wanted. At least that’s what he said he wanted.

He wanted me to be me. He gave me that gift by allowing me to expose myself to Deb.

Although, I don’t think that’s what he had in mind when I slit his throat.

Rolling away from my desk, I go back to my lab table and pull one last smear from the sample I can’t type. Let’s look at you one last time before I head over to the hotel. Maybe the tenth time’s the charm.

My brother, Biny is what I called him when we were little, was the last person to challenge me. And with these two women, I feel it again. There’s a stirring and it’s an irrational notion if ever I’ve had one. It’s there though. And I’m compelled. One might even call it primal.


Chapter 4 - Looking Pious & Pure