#next chapter i shall call WHEN OMELETTES GO WRONG lmao

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Can I keep you? Chapter 2 - True Colours

Pairing: Dexter Lumis x Indi Hartwell

Warnings: None

Summary: The morning after Dexter takes Indi to his house for their first date, Dexter continues to struggle to get used to the idea that Indi could love him despite showing her a glimpse of his true colours.

She’d asked him to stay with her but he’d given her his own bed and opted instead to spend the night out here instead. She could call him a gentleman until she was blue in the face and for whatever reason, they would still never see what she sees, never understand. And they could scream the word psychopath at her until their throats were sore and yet still she would feel no different.

♥ Read chapter 2 on ao3 HERE or below👀♥

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Sunlight pours in through the gap in the bedroom curtains. As Indi rolls over, the light slashes across her eyes and startles her awake. Her eyes briefly blink open. She immediately presses them tightly together again, face screwed up as she is temporarily blinded. What time is it? Her hip hurt from laying on the metal parts of her belt. Why is she wearing jeans in bed anyway? She felt the fleecy blanket draped over her and taut crisp bedsheets below her. Whose bed is this? She risks opening one eye only a little to blearily glance around at her surroundings. Where is she? Whose room is this?

Wait.

“Dexter?” Her voice breaks having not used it yet and she clears her throat. She rolls over and throws her arm out to check the bed beside her as though she expects him to be there. Finding it empty, she just holds her palm there for a minute flat against the sheet, as though trying to work out by touch if he was ever there. The sheet was perfectly flat and cold. What happened last night? He had carried her to bed...she asked him to stay….she doesn’t remember anything after that. She must have fallen asleep.

She sits up and tries to wipe the sleep from her eyes. She swings her legs over the side of the bed and stands up, stretching a little to try to kick her muscles back to life. She notices the door is left ajar and smooths out her clothes as she heads towards it.

She tepidly steps out into the hallway and calls his name again in a quieter tone. It’s quite dark with most of the windows shuttered but the lamp in the hallway offers enough dim lighting to see. As she walks out into the main living space, the yellow sun rays from the only non-shuttered window highlight a large figure slung lengthways over the small leather sofa, legs overhanging the side. She smiles and sighs, tilting her head to the side as she watches him sleep. If not for the slight movement of his chest she would swear he was dead. He looks so peaceful, she almost doesn’t want to wake him.

She walks over to the front of the house and opens a few of the shutters, letting natural sunlight stream through the glass. She winces as it hits her eyes, blinking to let her sight adjust. She doesn’t open any more than the ones on the front facing the sun. It’s his house and she’d rather leave it how he likes it. It’s nice to be able to see his house in natural light for once though.

She heads back over to Dexter and contemplates waking him for a moment before sliding in the narrow gap between the sofa and coffee table. She perches on the edge of it as she casts her eyes over his body before they find his face. And this is the man they say she shouldn’t be with. This is the man who is a ‘psychopath’, who everyone seems to be afraid of.

The man before her lies peacefully asleep, body contorted and twisted uncomfortably on the too small sofa. She’d asked him to stay with her but he’d given her his own bed and opted instead to spend the night out here instead. She could call him a gentleman until she was blue in the face and for whatever reason, they would still never see what she sees, never understand. And they could scream the word psychopath at her until their throats were sore and yet still she would feel no different.

She doesn’t even know what they see. She could never understand it.

To her he is perfect and that’s all she had ever, ever been able to see.

She reaches out her hand and gently flattens her palm on his chest, feeling it rise and fall. She leans down towards him and lowers her voice, not wanting to startle him. “Dexter.” She says softly in almost a whisper. She waits for a second. He doesn’t react. “Dexter….?” She asks more in a normal talking voice as she jostles his chest a little, trying to rouse him. He still doesn’t even flinch. If it wasn’t for the fact that she can clearly feel his heart beating and his chest move where her hand rests, she would swear that he really is dead.

She readjusts her position so that she is slid up closer to him now and strokes her thumb over the fabric of his shirt in more of an unconscious action than trying to rouse him. She leans down further so her face is only inches away from his and speaks again in a soft voice. “Dex…”

His eyes flash open. In a split second of reflex, he grabs her arm from his chest by the wrist and sits bolt upright. The force shoves her backwards and she almost falls back against the coffee table if not for his grip on her. She knocks over the glass left from last night and it clatters off the table onto the floor. He’s grabbing her wrist with a painful iron grip, if he tightens it any more it’ll break. And he so easily could. His eyes are wild, half frantic and confused and half looking to kill. Hers are shot wide with fright.

“Dexter it’s me, it’s me, it’s Indi….” She scrambles to get the words out, voice shaking a little as she desperately looks back into his eyes looking to find familiarity. He’s looming over her, chest now heaving, eyes as though desperately searching; for answers, for familiarity, for memories. She reaches her other hand up, curling her fingers around his tensed forearm. Maybe to try and get him to release her. More likely to try and provoke something from her touch. She tries to twist her arm free but can’t even move it a millimeter. The strength of that man is second to none.

He blinks.

His eyes shoot wide.

His senses return to find the desperate horrible realisation of where he is and what’s going on and who he is hurting.

Indi.

She’s looking at him like…

Like they all do. Scared. Pained?

His eyes trace from her face down to the wrist he has in his vice-like grip. The wrist he’s held so many times before but...not like this. Never like this.

Like a spring loaded lock, his fingers immediately unclench, releasing her. She falls back onto the coffee table and throws out her good hand to catch herself. Then she immediately wraps it around her sore wrist to nurse it. She’s breathing rapidly, still looking back at him with wide concerned and questioning eyes.

He slowly sits back, frantic eyes turned down to the floor as if searching for his own answers.

He’s not used to it. Someone in his house. Someone waking him up. He hasn’t been in this position in...actually he couldn’t remember anyone ever being in his house and waking him up.

He slowly turns his hand over in front of him, palm facing up, watching his fingers tightly clench and then unclench. He looks at it like it doesn’t belong to him. He’d never hurt her. Ever.

He hears Indi release a deep breath. “I guess the film last night scared you too huh.” She says a little shakily after a second, punctuated with a very slight somewhat tentative laugh.

He doesn’t want to look back up at her. He’s scared of what he might see in her if he does. That look…he can’t take that look again. The same way they all did. Like she’s scared of him. She’d never looked at him like that before. Not once. They all did. Everyone did. But not her. Never her. If he met her eyes again and saw that fear again lurking within them...he wouldn’t be able to take it.

But she doesn’t care. She probably wouldn’t like to be woken up like that either if she’d lived alone for so long. Especially after watching a horror film. Although he didn’t seem so bothered by it last night. Just how long had he been alone anyway? God her wrist hurt. His strength was unquestionable. It did make her wonder about his past, but she didn’t think too much about it. It just didn’t matter to her.

A moment passes where he just stares blankly into his hand with just the sound of his own breaths which still haven’t calmed down. “Dexter...” Her tone changes, serious yet soft. The shakiness is all but gone. He watches as her hand comes into view. She places it in his open palm and interlocks their fingers like she did last night. He sees the redness around her wrist.

“Dexter?”

He could listen to her say her name in that accent of hers a thousand times and never grow tired of it.

She pulls both their hands down and ducks her head as if forcing him to look up at her. He languidly meets her gaze, almost timidly, afraid of what he might see in her.

He sees only Indi. And she sees only him.

“Do you have a spare toothbrush?”

It takes him the longest time to register her question. She asks it so casually, so nonchalantly. That frightened look in her eyes is completely banished, a distant memory. Her gaze is so warm and somehow innocent, just normal, just...Indi.

He’s looking back at her like she’s just asked the weirdest thing in the world and after another moment of no response, she wonders once again if she’s just asked a really stupid question. Finally he nods a little but doesn’t move. His eyes are still searching hers for any sign of what he saw in her before but there is nothing. Not a flicker of any of it. No fear at all.

He goes to stand but realises he’s still caught up in her, her hand still interlaced with his. It baffles him how she could just so easily slip her hand in his; the same hand that just nearly damn near broke hers. She never saw any danger in him like others did, ever. She didn’t react like others did, she never had. It perplexed him, intrigued him and endeared her to him endlessly.

He reluctantly slides free from her grasp and sidles out, making his way to the basement. He takes the time to slow down his breaths and gather himself up. He returns and presents Indi with a toothbrush in its packaging. It’s a bluey purple colour and she smiles as she takes it. She knows he chose the colour specifically but doesn’t say anything.

 Before heading for a shower, she had asked if he had an old t-shirt she could borrow since she wanted to wash her hair and didn’t want to get her clothes wet. He’d picked up the first one he saw - a white shirt with ‘Death Row Records’ design on the front. Rather than an old tshirt it was actually his favourite and as he went to hang it back up and select another, he realised that because it was his favourite, it was actually the perfect choice. Now he’s waiting for her to finish up in the bathroom, hands clasped in his lap. He’s never had to wait to use his own shower before.

The door clicks and opens and Indi emerges from the bathroom, steam trailing behind her. “Better get in there quick Dexter, the water is HOT.” She says nonchalantly as she pads down the hallway towards him, toweling off her long dark hair. It was a lot hotter than the water in her apartment. Simone was always on the phone to the landlord trying to get them to come and fix it but it took so long for them to ever fix anything. Actually having a hot shower for once was quite a luxury.

Reaching the end of the hallway, she finds Dexter perching on the arm of the sofa staring straight at her unblinking. She stops. His eyes trail downwards and then back up as though fully taking her in. She looks better in that shirt than he ever did. “What?” She asks, following his gaze downwards and wonders for a second if- Oh he’s looking at the t-shirt.

“Does it suit me?” She asks half joking and then pulls out the edges to demonstrate how much it drowns her. “Not my best look. It’s a bit big but eh...I think I make it work.” She shrugs and smiles. His lips curve very gently. She thinks she’s not looking her best. He disagrees.

He rises into a standing position just as she approaches him. “I haven’t had a hot shower in sooo long.” He watches her as she finishes toweling her hair and then straightens up, quickly running a hand through it. Then as she stops in front of him, she releases a contented sounding sigh and just looks at him. They find themselves caught up in each other’s gazes once again. What was she going to say again? What was it that he was going to do?

“While you’re showering, I can make a start on breakfast.”

His eyes narrow.

“What? I can cook.” She says, trying to sound offended at his implication but knowing she has nothing to back it up with. Ok so she was always more of a takeout girl but herself and her housemate watch cooking programs together all the time. And this is what normal couples did. How hard could it be?

“You have more than just fruit loops right?” She asks, raising an eyebrow. She doesn’t need an answer. “Eggs?”

He nods.

“Err oh! Omelettes?” She suggests with an over enthusiasm. She’s made omelettes before. She knows what she’s doing. This will be a breeze. She sees a very slight hint of a smile. Omelettes it is.

He looks between her and the kitchen with a certain kind of skepticism.

“Dexter I’ll be fine. I know how to make omelettes. Come on, I’ve seen MasterChef.” Indi leans and throws the damp towel on his couch then grabs him by his big shoulders and turns him and tries to push him towards the hallway.

Not the first time she’s manhandled him. Hopefully not the last.

“You go shower and it’ll be waiting for you when you get out.” She says zealously as she gives him a final push and releases him. He finds his footing and glances over his shoulder at her, skepticism and concern masking his features.

“Go. I won’t burn your kitchen down, I promise.”

He wasn’t used to being told what to do. His usual rules didn’t seem to apply to Indi though. None of them really did. She was the first person to ever do that. She flipped his rules upside down and inside out until he didn’t even know what he was doing and the only thing he could focus on was her.

 Leaving an unnervingly excited Indi, Dexter heads into the bathroom after her. The air is still thick with hot mist as moisture clings to the air. As soon as he walks in and closes the door, he notices the new toothbrush in the toothbrush holder in the slot next to his. Another part of his house that had remained unused. Until now. It looks better with two. It balances it out like it was always supposed to look like that, like the fancy photograph on the packaging. Maybe it’s his artistic mind or maybe he just loves the damn sight of it, but he thinks that the purple colour compliments his blue ridiculously well.

He notices a very long dark hair caught on the ceramic in the sink. That probably gets everywhere. He doesn’t mind. He doesn’t mind any traces of her. He turns on the tap and starts to go about his business when he glances up at the mirror and just stops dead. There is a heart doodled in the condensation with ‘I+D’ scrawled in the middle of it.

He blinks a few times.

His eyes explore every line, every finger mark.

It doesn’t even look like his mirror. Can’t be his mirror. The D doesn’t stand for Dexter. It can’t.

His focus shifts beyond the steam written message to his own reflection looking back at him. It surprises him almost to find himself staring back at him and not somebody else, because however he tries to rationalise it, this can’t be his life surely.

And after he’d hurt her this morning too, after he showed her a glimpse of his ‘true colours’....

And suddenly everything rushes through his mind. Last night, the way she’d clung to him, sought him for comfort and safety, not batted an eyelid when he’d hurt her and now she was out there making him breakfast...the I+D written on the mirror...

Indi Hartwell really can love Dexter Lumis.

She loves him.

She really loves him.