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eddieheart · 1 month ago

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Oh my gods! Devastating but I love it so much!!

The Science of Loss

Dexter Morgan and Reader

Part Two: Dexter’s Perspective

Summary: Even in death you hold a great impact in Dexter Morgan's life.

Warning(s): Swearing, (major) character death, clinical descriptions of death/crime scenes, mentions of violence, grief/loss, secondary trauma (Deb), and murder/references to

Notes: Although this is a part two, it can be read separately from Deb's perspective. This is a platonic Dexter and Reader fic, let me know if I should do more

Debra's Perspective

You were one of the few people who never made Dexter feel like he needed to perform humanity. Your interactions in the lab had a comfortable precision – you'd both speak the language of blood patterns, trajectory analysis, victim positioning. He didn't have to manufacture the appropriate emotional responses because you never demanded them. You understood silence.

Now he stands in the lab where you used to work, and the silence feels different. Heavy. He touches the microscope you'd use to analyze trace evidence, remembers how you'd explain your findings without the theatrical flourish Masuka employed. Just clean, methodical observations. You'd been easier to understand than most humans.

"The blood pool indicates they were conscious for approximately two minutes after the shot," he tells Deb, because these are the facts he knows how to process. His sister stares at him with red-rimmed eyes, and he recognizes that this information isn't helpful. You would have known how to translate between his analytical approach and Deb's raw emotion. You'd done it countless times before.

The security footage plays on his laptop. He's analyzed it like any other crime scene: entrance angle, shooter position, blood spatter direction. But something uncomfortable shifts in his chest when he watches you step in front of the teenage clerk. A protective instinct that doesn't align with efficient survival. It's the kind of human behavior he's always struggled to understand, but somehow made sense when you did it.

"You know what's fucked up?" Deb's voice cracks. "They would have fucking loved analyzing their own crime scene. All that blood spatter data."

Dexter nods, because you would have. You shared his fascination with the technical aspects of death, though yours came from a place of justice rather than necessity. You'd once spent three hours explaining to him how different blood pattern classifications could reveal a victim's final moments. Not because it was relevant to a case, but because you recognized his genuine interest.

He finds himself in the morgue at night, standing where your body had been. The metal table reflects the fluorescent lights, and he remembers how you used to joke that the morgue had better lighting than your apartment. Dark humor that made others uncomfortable but made perfect sense to him.

"I don't know how to help her," he tells the empty table. Deb is spinning out, breaking down, and his usual scripts for performing brotherly comfort feel inadequate. You would have known what to say. You always knew how to reach her when she retreated behind her walls.

The irony doesn't escape him – seeking advice from a memory of someone who helped him understand human connection. But you had been different. You didn't try to fix his peculiarities or demand conventional emotional responses. Instead, you'd simply included him in your understanding of human variation. "Different wavelengths," you'd called it, "but still on the spectrum."

He keeps your last case file. Not for sentimental reasons – he doesn't do sentimental – but because your analysis was always impeccable. Sometimes he reads your notes, appreciating the logical progression of your thoughts. The way you could look at violence and find patterns, meaning, justice.

The young shooter is caught three weeks after your death. Dexter sits in the observation room during the interrogation, studying the teenager's body language, the tremor in his hands. His Dark Passenger whispers familiar suggestions, but he remembers your voice during late-night lab discussions:

"Justice isn't always about punishment, Dexter. Sometimes it's about understanding why."

You'd said that after a particularly brutal case, your gloved hands steady as you processed evidence. He hadn't understood then – his own sense of justice had always been more… direct. But watching the terrified kid break down during questioning, he thinks maybe he's beginning to grasp what you meant.

Deb finds him organizing blood slides one night. Not his special collection – just routine case evidence. But he's doing it the way you taught him, with that extra level of precision you always insisted on.

"You miss them too, don't you?" she asks, her voice rough. "In your own way."

He considers this. Misses your predictable presence in the lab? Yes. Misses how you helped him navigate complicated social situations? Also yes. But there's something else – an unfamiliar discomfort when he passes your empty workstation. A hesitation before using your favorite microscope.

"Yes," he says simply, because you appreciated when he didn't elaborate unnecessarily.

Harrison asks about you sometimes. You'd been good with him, patient in a way that matched Dexter's own careful approach to fatherhood. You'd explained complex forensic concepts to Harrison in ways that satisfied his curiosity without disturbing his innocence. A balance Dexter often struggled to find.

"Where did Y/N go?" Harrison asks one evening.

Dexter remembers your discussions about death, how you'd emphasized the importance of being honest with children while respecting their developmental stage. He tries to channel your measured approach.

"They died," he says carefully. "Someone made a very bad choice with a gun, and Y/N tried to protect another person."

"Like a hero?"

Dexter thinks about your final moments on the security footage. The calculated risk, the protective instinct, the technical perfection of the blood spatter you left behind. "Yes," he says. "Like a hero."

He helps Deb pack up your apartment because that's what siblings do, according to the social scripts he's learned. Your forensics journals are organized by date and subject matter. Your case files are meticulously labeled. Even in death, you maintain the order that made you comprehensible to him.

"Fuck," Deb chokes out, finding one of your hair ties. She crumples, and Dexter moves to support her weight, remembering how you'd coached him through similar situations.

"Let her feel it," you'd advised during one of Deb's previous crises. "You don't have to fix it. Just be there."

So he is. He holds his sister while she breaks apart, and though he can't fully understand her grief, he recognizes its patterns. The way it spreads like blood spatter – predictable trajectories, measurable impact points, analyzable distribution.

Later, he finds your notes on his own blood spatter analysis. Margins filled with observations, questions, suggestions for improvement. You'd approached his work with the same detailed attention he gave to his… extracurricular activities. Not questioning, just analyzing. Seeking to understand.

"Your brother processes things differently," he overhears you telling Deb once. "It's not wrong, just different. Like how blood spatter can tell different stories depending on the angle you view it from."

The metaphor had been oddly perfect, much like your presence in his carefully constructed world. You didn't disrupt his patterns or expose his secrets. You simply observed, analyzed, and accepted the evidence before you.

He keeps your forensics kit in his lab. Not out of sentiment – Dexter Morgan doesn't do sentiment – but because your organizational system was superior to the department standard. At least, that's what he tells himself when he finds his hands lingering on the latches, remembering how you'd walk him through your processing methods.

"Evidence tells stories," you'd say, "but only if we listen carefully."

He's listening now, in his own way. To the stories told by your absence. The way Deb's grief spreads like high-velocity spatter. The void you left in the lab's carefully calibrated ecosystem. The subtle changes in his own patterns since you've been gone.

It's not grief as others experience it. He knows this, just as he knows he processes everything differently. But it's something. A disruption in his carefully maintained routine. A gap in his understanding of human interaction. A missing data point in his ongoing study of normal behavior.

You would have appreciated the analytical approach to processing your loss. Would have helped him categorize these unfamiliar reactions with the same precision you brought to blood spatter analysis. Would have understood that his version of missing you would manifest in reorganized evidence boxes and late nights reviewing your case files.

The science of loss, he discovers, is messier than other sciences. Less predictable than blood spatter. Harder to categorize than DNA evidence. But he continues to study it, methodically documenting its effects on Deb, on the department, on his own carefully structured world.

Because that's what you would have done. You would have looked at the evidence, analyzed the patterns, and accepted the conclusions – even the uncomfortable ones. Even the ones that suggest that maybe, in his own unique way, Dexter Morgan is capable of missing someone who made his world more comprehensible.

The security footage plays one last time. He watches you make the statistically illogical choice to step in front of danger. Watches the blood pattern bloom across your chest – medium-velocity spatter, consistent with a single gunshot wound. Watches you break protocol to protect another person.

And something in his carefully ordered mind shifts, just slightly. A new pattern emerging from familiar data. A different way of understanding sacrifice, justice, connection.

You would have appreciated the symmetry of that – teaching him something new, even after you're gone.

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#Is this a one shot or is there more?#Cus I would totally read more!#don’t know if it was on purpose or not but I love your take on autistic dexter #autistic dexter morgan #asd #autism #loss #fanfic

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