App for babylonwood
The Player
User Name/Nick: Shannon
User LJ: black_angel_
AIM/IM: AIM - Homemade Prodigy ; Newagedavinci
E-mail: bandakar@gmail.com
Other Characters: N/A
Sail away, sail away, we've miles before the morning,
And further still to go before the day.
They say a crimson dawn means all the sailors should take warning,
But a black sky only means it's time for us to sail away.
The Character
Character Name: Dexter Morgan
Character Journal: born_inblood
Canon: Dexter
Age: Mid 30s
From When?: 4x11 - Hello, Dexter Morgan
Near the end of the episode, right before Dexter goes to the arcade to find Arthur and Arthur subsequently follows Dexter back to the station. No finding out that Dexter's name isn't Kyle Butler, and no death of Rita.
Abilities/Powers: Thanks mostly to his hobby, Dexter shows skill in a variety of areas. Stealth and tracking come in handy while he's stalking his prey. He knows his way around lock-picking tools. His job made him good at fabricating the evidence of a crime scene. He needs to be able to steer the police in a different direction when they're getting too close to whoever he has in his sights. He knows how to be incredibly thorough with research. There's too little, but there's never too much. He needs to be sure, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that his victim is deserving.
While still in college, Dexter took a class for advanced jujitsu. It helps him when it comes to taking down his prey when the M99 won't cut it for whatever reason. His Dark Passenger could be the reason why he took jujitsu in the first place, but he just says that it was an easy extra credit.
He's good with a variety of weapons, though most of his skill rests with blades. They are his weapon / kill tool of choice. A blade to slice, a blade to stab, and one to dismember (and he has a beautiful collection of knives, too :c )
Dexter's smart. Above average kind of smart. It's never really stated, for sure, just how far above average, but enough to make Masuka feel good about himself when Dexter screws up, at least. Dexter was at the top of his class in medical school before he decided to leave it for blood spatter analysis.
Between his job, and his long standing intimate relationship with blood, Dexter can read blood with ease, almost as though it speaks to him. It opens up to him and tells him all about itself. He doesn't need to study it to figure out what happened. Sometimes, just one look is all it takes for him to know, at least, how the murder happened.
Dexter is one hell of a bowler. Even he's a little disturbed by just how good he is.
Power Limitations: N/A
Inventory
Personality: Dexter’s personality is incredibly complicated in it’s simplicity. He’s emotionally detached from most things, as well as from humanity, itself. He often refers to others as ‘humans’ almost as though he considers himself apart from them. He claims that he’s completely empty inside, with no feelings and no real conscience to speak of. His emotional responses are all just a part of a well-rehearsed act. The only interest he really has in relationships of any kind is where they make him seem perfectly normal. Or normal enough. Everything he does in public is all just an elaborate hoax to keep the monster concealed.
Despite Dexter’s constant insistence that he doesn’t possess any real human emotions, he seems to, where children are concerned. He connects with them, takes an interest in them and sometimes even goes out of his way to protect them and see that they’re avenged for any wrongs done against them. On occasion he’s even set his own needs aside (as well as the Code of Harry) to do right by a child. Though not always for the best, he’s much more honest and about as open as he can be with children. As they get older, though, he loses that ability to connect with them and starts to get awkward and withdrawn around them, as he is with adults.
On the outside, Dexter is just a regular guy. He keeps to himself. He’s a pretty hard worker. He’s a generally nice guy who doesn’t make too many waves. He tries to live his life under the radar. He tries to stay mostly unnoticed so he tries to adjust his personality accordingly. He’s the quiet blood spatter analyst at work. He’s the loving, thoughtful husband and father at home. He’s the caring, concerned brother when he’s with his younger sister. Technically, he’s all of those things and none of them. Just who he thinks he needs to be for the person or people he’s with to blend in, and keep everyone separate from who and what he really is. He doesn’t see, though, that he really is starting to become the parts that he’s playing.
Dexter is loyal, over all detachment aside. Mostly to his family. His sister, his wife and his children. He goes to great lengths to keep his family safe from himself and those like him who could do them harm. There are times when the things that he does are for that reason, and that reason alone. People wind up on his table just to keep them from hurting his family, but also so he can be who he needs to be for them. He needs to keep his urges satisfied so that he can be Dexter Morgan, family man.
Ultimately, the part of himself that he’s trying to hide and protect everyone from is his aptly named ‘Dark Passenger’. When he was only three years old, his mother was murdered in front of him. It broke something inside. He was never quite the same. Since only a few short years after that, he’s felt the need to take lives of his own. It’s the one thing that makes him feel whole. After killing his first neighbourhood pet, Dexter’s foster father nurtured his needs and directed them in the most positive way he could, turning his son into a sort of serial killer vigilante. He kills only those deserving. As righteous an act as it seems, he’s merely doing it for his own selfish reasons. He needs to kill, and disposing of the trash that plagues society is the safest way for him to do it. Killing makes everything make sense to him, at least for a little while. It’s the part of his life that he truly understands. While everything else is just practiced parts, killing is the only thing that’s really Dexter. The ritualistic nature of the kill brings a sense of normalcy to a somewhat hectic life that sometimes doesn’t even seem to be his. The ritual of the kill is incredibly important to him. It’s important that that part of his life doesn’t change. He’s a creature of habit.
Mostly, Dexter is unfazed by the people he murders, but there are some that have a very real affect on him. Especially if they’re people he managed to get close to. His brother is one such case. But it also showed his loyalty. He was given a choice between killing his blood brother or his foster sister, and he chose his brother. He couldn’t kill Debra. He preferred to kill his own flesh and blood over a woman who doesn’t even know him. Killing Brian changed him. He was distracted at work, and screwing up with Rita and saying the wrong things to his sister. Killing seemed to be the only solution to get his life back on track. But he was being stalked by Sgt. Doakes, and that made things difficult. Once the opportunity finally did present itself, he went after someone. A blind voodoo priest named Jimmy. He did everything right until it came time to drive the knife into his heart. He couldn’t kill him. He ended up setting him free. He was convinced that he couldn’t do anything right. It was starting to stress him out and was causing him to make more mistakes. When a new murderer reared his ugly head and Dexter went after him, he didn’t think things through and Dexter’s victim ended up getting away and it almost resulted in Dexter getting himself killed.
Another that negatively affected him was Lila, his sponsor from when Rita believed he was shooting heroin (He’d framed Rita’s ex-husband to get him out of Rita’s life for good by shooting him up with heroin. Rita thought that it was Dexter’s drugs, because he knew the dosage to give him and just how to cook the heroin). He changed around her. She had been an addict and therefore recognized demons. She recognized Dexter’s, but now quite what it was, at first. He got comfortable around her and opened up to her. He even got physical with her. There was a definite change in personality with her, because with her, he could be who he really was. He had no secrets from Lila, but he became more withdrawn from Rita. As he and Lila got closer, he found out that she was a sociopath much like him and there was just a connection that he didn’t have with Rita. Since Rita was no more than a disguise for him, he slipped into an affair with Lila. It seemed rather fickle of him to cheat on Rita so easily, but Lila was the first person he’d connected with on that level since Brian. After a series of events though, it lead to another test of loyalty. Lila tried to burn her apartment down with him, Astor and Cody in it. She was trying to get rid of the kids for Dexter. She couldn’t be allowed to walk free after the things she’d done. When he killed her, though, there was obviously caring and compassion. He’d never cared about the comfort and well-being of his victims before, but he’d injected Lila with a spinal epidural to make sure that she was comfortable and that her death was painless.
Despite his every thought, Dexter does have the capacity to care for others that he has so little in common with. His time spent with Arthur Mitchell shows that. Arthur -- The Trinity Killer -- is much like Dexter, himself. He uses his family to cover up who and what he really is. He wants to learn how Arthur balances the serial killer and the family man, but comes to realize that he doesn’t. Dexter sees how Arthur terrorizes his family into keeping his cover, and hopes that he’s not doing the same to his own family. The more time spent with Arthur, though, makes Dexter come to realize that he would never do the things to his family, that Arthur does. He would never want to hurt them that way. They aren’t just saying they want him and need him in their lives because he’d terrorized them into saying these things. They really do want them in his life, and they really do need them in his life. And he wants to be part of their lives.
History: Dexter was the second son of Laura Moser and Joe Driscoll, and the younger brother of Brian Moser. When both boys were still very young, Laura was killed in a shipping container, in front of Dexter and Brian. Cut into pieces. Harry Morgan, police officer with the Miami Metro Police Department, was on the scene after Laura’s murder. Laura was one of Harry’s confidential informants, and as such, he’d promised that nothing would ever happen to her. He promised that he’d keep her safe. When he saw the two boys in the shipping container, sitting in a pool of their mother’s blood, he knew how he could make it up to Laura, for breaking his promise to her. He only took the youngest of the two boys, though, and left the other there for the other officers to take care of. He took young Dexter and adopted the newly orphaned boy. Brain was left. Perhaps it was because Dexter, being only three years old at the time, had a better chance of coming out of the gruesome ordeal in one piece. Brain claimed that he, himself, was just too messed up to take. The younger Moser’s last name was changed to ‘Morgan’ and thus, Dexter’s last tie to his mother was supposed to have been severed. A new start, so to speak, as it wasn’t long after the murder that Dexter had no recollection of his mother.
It wasn’t until Dexter was seven years old that it became clear just how witnessing his mother’s murder really affected him. Something broke inside of both Moser boys the day that Laura was killed. The only difference was, Dexter had someone to help him find a place to put those broken pieces, once they were discovered. It was at that particular age when Harry noticed Dexter’s tendency to kill animals around the neighbourhood. Animals that annoyed him or just ended up on his bad side, somehow. Harry saw, in Dexter, a sociopath and a budding serial killer. A boy with an innate need to kill. Knowing that there wasn’t really any way to stop Dexter, aside from locking him up, Harry knew that he needed to direct Dexter. He needed to make the terrible things that Dexter did, a little less terrible. He taught Dexter morals and gave him a code to live by. Don’t get caught. Make sure the victim is deserving. Those were the most important. Being a cop, himself, Harry knew what it took to teach Dexter how to cover his tracks, and keep from getting caught. If he was going to kill, he was going to do it properly. Above all, Harry wanted to channel Dexter’s urges in a more positive direction. Harry taught him to be cautious, meticulous and efficient as a killer. Most of all, he was taught to only kill those who were deserving. Men and women who’d done terrible things, but managed to stay out of prison, or who got out before they were reformed. He wasn’t to kill an innocent. He was to be thorough in his initial research and wasn’t to make any moves until he was sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that the person in question didn’t deserve to live.
With the death of his mother, Dexter also seemed to lose touch with his humanity. Harry taught Dexter how to fake human emotions and how to react in certain situations. Not feeling any emotions of his own, he needed that extra guidance. Some of the people in his life weren’t the best examples. His over-reacting, somewhat overly emotional foster sister, for instance. He needed proper reactions that people would find believable. He needed to be able to fit in.
As Dexter got older, he and Harry started to spend more and more time together, and Debra grew jealous of the hunting trips. They weren’t just for sport, though. Not like regular hunting trips. Harry thought that killing animals on a hunting trip would be a safe way for Dexter to deal with his needs. It wasn’t the most effective way, but it served it’s purpose for the time, being.
When Dexter got a little older -- into his teenage years -- Harry needed to constantly remind his son of the Code he’d laid out for him years before. He actually had to go as far as to stop Dexter from lashing out at a bully from school. Since Dexter wasn’t the type to lash out in the traditional sense, it may have ended with the boy being killed. Being a bully was no reason to die.
When Dexter was sixteen, his foster mother Dorris died of cancer. Before that, Dorris had begun to see through Dexter’s act. The reactions, the emotions, everything. She was growing suspicious of her adopted son. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but there was something not quite right about him. She had actually gone as far as to suggest Dexter go to see a psychologist. More guidance from Harry got Dexter through the ordeal unscathed. Harry taught him how to speak with the psychologist. Give the opposite answer of what he thought. Go against his instincts.
Unfortunately, reaching sexual maturity was much more awkward for Dexter than it was for most others. He started to realized that he had no interest in any sort of relationship with either sex. But relationships, sexual and otherwise, would help with his human disguise. Spending too much time alone in public would make him stand out too much and everything was all about blending in with the rest of the crowd. Naturally, he went to Harry for guidance. Talking to and dealing with women. It didn’t really help him to become any less awkward around women, though. Despite that, it all seemed perfectly normal. No one really suspected that it was because he was just awkward around humanity as a whole. As much as he preferred to be on his own, he understood the need to be in a relationship to maintain his cover. He tried to avoid most of the physical stuff, though. Especially sex. It was often during sex when women found out that Dexter’s quite empty inside.
Age twenty-one. Harry was hospitalized due to coronary artery disease. While in the hospital, Harry pointed something out to Dexter. There was a nurse named Mary who was killing patients. She was causing them to overdose on morphine. She was deserving. Dexter was given permission to kill her. Dexter’s first human victim. It was during that very first kill when Dexter started to develop some of his ritualistic tendencies. She was strapped to something passable as a table, and everything was covered in plastic. The plastic made sure that no evidence of what went on there would be found. No stray drops of blood to show that someone had been murdered.
Dexter’s second kill was a man named Juan Rinez. He was a murderous pimp who was arrested but then was allowed to go free due to a faulty warrant. Harry was enraged by that. Dexter went after him. Harry tried to convince himself that training Dexter was the right thing to do, because of a situation such as that. After the death of Juan, Harry walked in on his son while he was dismembering the dead body. He got sick after seeing what he’d help his son to become. Years later, Dexter found out that his foster father killed himself, and it was that sight that drove him to it.
Dexter’s university career was spent in med school and he was at the top of his class but he gave it all up. He decided to go into forensics and more specifically, blood spatter analysis for the homicide division of the Miami Metro Police Department. It helped him to stay on top of the deserving in Miami. He would always need someone on his table and that would be the easiest way to find people to fill that need. There was also the fact that he’d gotten rather intimate with over the years. It was clearly exactly where he belonged.
With his sister’s help, Dexter met Rita Bennett. She ended up being the perfect fit for someone like Dexter. She’d come from an abusive marriage and was therefore completely uninterested in the physical aspects of relationships, much like Dexter, himself. She was just part of his disguise. Their first date went about as well as could be expected. Interruptions due to Dexter stalking his prey. That aside, they ended up in a long-standing relationship. He got along well enough with Rita, and rather well with her children, Astor and Cody. He’d always gotten along better with children, than with their parents. They seemed to represent the innocence that he’d lost so long ago. He connected with them. Plus, he always found children to be much more interesting.
Life as a blood spatter analyst while moonlighting as a serial killer worked out surprisingly well for Dexter. His colleagues saw him as the quirky lab geek who mostly kept to himself and was really good at his job. And Debra Morgan’s older brother, of course. There was a man who saw through Dexter’s disguise though, but not enough to actually know what he was looking at. Sergeant James Doakes had a way of making it painfully obvious that he didn’t fully trust Dexter. Dexter didn’t quite rise to the challenge that Doakes seemed to be presenting him with, though. He just continued on as he always had, forming and maintaining empty relationships.
Another serial killer made himself known and, naturally, Dexter took a bit of an interest. A possible next victim. After a while, the other serial killer -- The Ice Truck Killer -- seemed to be sending messages directly to Dexter. Body parts set up in specific ways and in specific locations to represent images from Dexter’s past. There was a prostitute with her fingernails all painted different colors. She represented the mother that Dexter had lost. Laura used to paint her nails like that. There was a room filled with the blood from the drained bodies (the Ice Truck Killer would drain all of the blood from his victims, and then dismember them) that was supposed to represent Dexter’s ‘birth’. Born in blood.
During the Ice Truck Killer’s reign of terror, one of his victims went free. The doctor who treated that man ended up taking a bit of an interest in Debra, but it was obvious where his interest really was. He was always asking questions about Dexter and wanting to spend time with Dexter and including himself in Dexter’s life. Like when Dexter got informed of Joe Driscoll’s death, and needed to clear his personal affects from his house. Rudy -- Brian. The Ice Truck Killer -- tagged along.
Unfortunately for Dexter, Rita had started to feel much more comfortable to him, and was opening up to the idea of starting a more physical relationship with him. Dexter struggled to keep the relationship sex-free, because he was starting to grow rather fond of her and her children. He knew that if they had sex, she would feel his emptiness, and it would ruin everything. It always did. That changed, though, after a therapy session with a man who was to be Dexter’s next victim. The therapist put Dexter into a deep state of calm, and Dexter started to remember bits of his past. The very past that he’d forgotten about so long ago. Glimpses of a terrified young boy sitting in blood. Becoming incredibly emotional after the ordeal, he sought out comfort. He went to Rita and slept with her of his own accord. It felt real and comfortable. It wasn’t forced, like it had been times before. It made their relationship grow on a more intimate level.
Paul -- Rita’s abusive ex-husband -- tried to weasel his way back into the lives of Rita and her kids, though, which ended up being a problem for Dexter. Paul tried to convince Rita that he’d changed. He still wanted to be a father to his kids. But he hadn’t changed at all. He got rough with Rita one night and Dexter wasn’t going to stand for it. Since Paul was on probation (and an ex-heroin addict), Dexter knew how to get him out of the Bennett family’s lives. Dexter knocked out Paul, took him back to his hotel room, and shot him up with heroin. When Paul didn’t check in with his probation officer, it was revealed that he’d been using again, and he went back to prison.
After some research into that room that was filled with the blood of the Ice Truck Killer’s victims, and why it seemed to evoke certain long repressed memories, Dexter found out that there was a woman killed in much the same way some decades ago, and that woman was his mother. It wasn’t just him in that shipping container where he was found in a pool of his own brother’s blood. He was with a slightly older boy. His older brother Brian.
Rudy, in an attempt to draw Dexter to him, abducts Debra, and leaves Dexter a series of clues on how to find her, and more importantly, him. It eventually comes to light that Rudy, Brian, and the Ice Truck Killer are all the same person, and that person is Dexter’s older brother. Brian tried to convince Dexter to kill his foster sister, so that they can be a family again. Debra needed to be out of the way for Dexter to be who he really was, with his biological brother. Dexter couldn’t kill her though, and opted to kill his brother instead, which left him feeling heartbroken, in a sense. The only person who truly understood what he’d been through and who he was ended up being killed by his hand. The last piece of his long forgotten family was gone.
Sgt. Doakes ended up suspecting -- catching onto? -- the fact that Dexter was connected to the Ice Truck Killer, but he couldn’t figure out how. This lead to him stalking Dexter, to find out what he was always up to, and just what his connection to Rudy was. This lead to Dexter taking up more socially acceptable hobbies like bowling. He needed to seem just as normal as everyone else. It was 38 days before Dexter got away from Doakes long enough to take a victim. A blind voodoo priest. Dexter couldn’t kill him though. He ended up letting him go free. Plagued by thoughts of having killed his own brother, he felt that he could no longer do anything right. He was screwing up with Rita, and at work. He wasn’t exactly winning any points with Debra, who he was trying to kick out of his place (she’d been staying at Dexter’s since her bout with the Ice Truck Killer). In his need to have his own place to himself again, and to have his place back to it’s previous semi-lived in condition, he was urging Debra out the door, obviously being a little less than sensitive about her situation with Rudy. He was even starting to mess up at work. Little things like leaving the lens cap on his camera, and big things like stepping in blood at the crime scene and almost not stopping a woman from getting there herself. The mother of the one who’d been killed. When Dexter caught her, she actually asked him to slaughter the man who’d killed her son. Slaughter him like a dog. Little Chino. He was the man who’d killed that woman’s son. He was the man who she was asking Dexter to kill. He took that quite to heart and went after Chino. Unfortunately, his mind still wasn’t quite in the right place. Chino was big. He was much bigger than Dexter was used to. Dexter didn’t really account for that. Dexter had Chino strapped down onto his table, and the big man broke free once he woke up and realized just what was happening. Dexter needed to get him back, but he needed to be much more careful. He needed to think things through better. He needed to get his head back in the game.
Dexter went after Chino again, but tried to do it smart the next time. Longer range tranquilizer weapons to take Chino down, but he was expected. Chino had people waiting for him. Dexter ran and hid in a sewer for a few hours. He hadn’t really realized that Rita had been calling him while he’d been in hiding. She was waiting at his apartment when he finally got home. She questioned where he’d been and she called his bluff when he said that he was out late, working a case. Then she started to question how secretive he’d been being. Then she started to question the things about what had happened to Paul, since Paul had contacted her and told her that Dexter had framed him. Dexter fessed up to that. He reacted to Paul hurting her. He said that he’d acted on impulse, but when she asked where he got the heroin from, he said that he’d gotten it from the evidence locker at work. Stealing the heroin from the station on impulse aside, she wanted to know just how he’d known how to cook the heroin. Or how he knew just what kind of dose to give a big guy like Paul. She knew the signs. She “knew” that the heroin was Dexter’s. After a bit of a discussion, he agreed to try Narcotics Anonymous.
Dexter went to an NA meeting, though he skipped out early on the first one. They were all baring their souls, and Dexter couldn’t do that. It just wasn’t a good place for him. He tried to explain to Rita that he could get off the drugs on his own, but she knew what it was like, having dealt with similar issues with her ex husband. Either Dexter went back, or she couldn’t be with him anymore. He reluctantly went back because he didn’t want to lose Rita. He even found a sponsor who he ended up really connecting with. Lila. A sociopath just like him, and a pyromaniac.The closer he got to Lila, the more distant he got from Rita, until they were no longer seeing each other. Dexter and Lila ended up in a sort of twisted relationship. Dexter even slept with her because he wanted to, not because he felt like he should. Lila knew who he was and wanted to be with him, despite that. She even set fire to her own apartment just to see him. She killed Sgt. Doakes to protect Dexter (he’d caught Dexter disposing of a body) and tried to kill Astor and Cody just to get them out of Dexter’s life. They were just part of his disguise and with her, he didn’t need that disguise anymore, therefore, they didn’t need to be in his life any longer. Between that and other things she had done, it was clear that she needed to be dealt with. She was dangerous. After trying to kill Astor and Cody, Lila disappeared to Paris. Dexter knew he’d find her there though. He went to Paris looking for her. Killing Lila was nothing like his usual kills. He used a spinal epidural so that she’d feel no pain when he killed her. He said his piece and then stabbed her in the heart.
During his time at Narcotics Anonymous, the police and FBI were looking into the newest serial killer. They dubbed him the Bay Harbor Butcher. Some drivers found the bodies that Dexter had been dumping into the harbor. The Miami Metro PD were, unknowingly, investigating one of their own. FBI Agent Lundy who was heading up the task force looking into the Butcher suspected that it was, at least, someone in law enforcement. Dexter wrote a memoir for the police that said things that would throw the police off the scent, sending them in different directions. Lundy saw that and realized that the Butcher knew exactly what to say to do that to the police. Then it was noticed that he only went after murderers, narrowing it down to the homicide department. It was Sgt. Doakes who got the blame, though. He was found with Dexter’s blood slides, after he stole them from Dexter’s apartment. Dexter got called in by the FBI and as soon as he saw the slides, he thought that he was caught. He was asked about them, and started to confess. Before he got too far, though, and said anything to actually incriminate himself, it was brought to light that it was actually Doakes that they were talking about. They just called in Dexter because he was the blood guy.
After so long, Doakes got confirmation that Dexter was, indeed, hiding something. He witnessed Dexter disposing of a body. A confrontation between Dexter and Doakes ended with Dexter getting shot in the leg, and Doakes being locked in a cabin. Before Dexter could really deal with Doakes, though, Lila’d killed him. She blew up the cabin. One of the major offenses that ultimately lead to her death. With all evidence leading to Doakes, and Doakes unable to plead his case, the murders of the Bay Harbor Butcher were pinned on him and the case was closed.
It took some time due to the fact that Dexter had actually been with another woman, but Rita and Dexter managed to work out their differences and they reconnected. He managed to get his relationship with her back on track. Also without Doakes around, Dexter wasn’t under constant scrutiny at work. Things were looking up until he killed an innocent man. He’d been stalking a man by the name of Freebo, but Freebo was in the midst of a confrontation with another man. Freebo managed to get away, but that just caused the man to turn on Dexter. Dexter stabbed him as an act of self defense. It turned out that the man he’d killed wasn’t deserving. And he was the little brother of ADA Miguel Prado. Dexter still had to kill Freebo, though. Unfortunately, Freebo had been blamed for the murder of the young Prado, so Miguel and the police were looking for him as well. Dexter got to him first, though.
After discovering that it had been Dexter who did away with Freebo, Miguel became interested in that part of Dexter’s life. That darker part of Dexter. They started spending more time together. Surprisingly,Dexter had managed to find another person who knew the real him and was okay with it. Miguel embraced that part of Dexter’s life. As ADA, he had access to terrible men that were previously lost to Dexter. Miguel just kept slipping further into Dexter’s life and Dexter seemed to allow it, much the same as he had with Lila. Miguel started to take things a little too far, though. He was going after the wrong people. He wasn’t bothering with Dexter’s Code of Harry. Miguel killed whoever he wanted to -- usually people who opposed him in one way or another -- thinking that he could get away with it, based on what he learned from Dexter. It was rather distressing to Dexter and he took matters into his own hands when Miguel targeted Lieutenant LaGuerta. He killed Miguel, though it wasn’t by conventional means. Dexter strangled him and left him out for all to see.
Rita and Dexter started to get physically and emotionally closer after the ordeal with Lila and much to Dexter’s chagrin, Rita ended up pregnant with his child. He was given the choice to walk out of her life, and have nothing to do with the child, or stay and be a father to it. He seriously considered leaving, because he didn’t want to be a bad influence on his child. He struggled with the decision, though a talk with Debra did help him to see the other side. He ended up, though, deciding that he really did want her and the kids in his life, and ended up proposing to her. They were married early into Rita’s pregnancy. She wanted it to happen before she started to show, and Dexter obliged.
Being a father and a husband took a toll on Dexter’s “night life”. He was having trouble balancing the family man and the serial killer. With a new baby in the house, family man was taking precedence over everything, much to Dexter’s dismay. Alone time seemed like a foreign concept. Until he found a serial killer much like him. Arthur Mitchell. The Trinity Killer. Knowing what he was capable of after seeing him collapse a man’s skull with a hammer, Dexter thought there was no way Arthur could be living a normal life, but he took interest when he saw that Arthur had a loving family. There was hope of balancing both after all. Dexter inserted himself into Arthur’s life under the name of Kyle Butler, a man who was in Miami without his family. He did whatever he could to stay near Arthur and even started to get closer to his family. Dexter went on trips with Arthur, with plans to kill him after he felt he learned everything he needed from the other serial killer. It wasn’t to be, though, and he had to keep up the guise of Kyle Butler for even longer. The further he delved into Arthur’s home life, though, to easier it was for him to see the cracks. Arthur’s family was terrified of him, and Dexter was actually thinking that the people in his life felt the same. Their own insistence, though, told him differently. Even he could tell that they were being genuine when they said that they needed him.
It was Thanksgiving at the Mitchell’s, and Dexter allowed himself to get overly emotional, and he slipped up, letting the family see him for what he really was. Arthur had been letting his own true colors shine through and ended up attacking his own son. Dexter reacted badly and pulled Arthur off of his son, dragging him to the kitchen. He pulled a knife on Arthur and threatened him, in time for his wife and daughter to see. From that point, they knew that “Kyle Butler” wasn’t exactly who he appeared to be.
Dexter had to kill Arthur. He realized that there was nothing he could learn from that man. He didn’t want his family to be terrified of him. He wanted them to want him and they did. He didn’t want to learn from a man like that if terrorizing his family was what it meant. He ended up witnessing Arthur kidnap a young boy while he was stalking him before the kill. Before he could move on Arthur, he needed to get the boy back. He didn’t know if that was new behavior, or if it was something that Arthur’d done before. Some research, though, told Dexter that it was the latter of the two. Dexter searched frantically for the boy and tried everything he could think of to look into, until one thing came to mind, after stumbling upon the bomb shelter where Arthur was holding the boy. Arthur traveled the country building homes, and a boy had gone missing in each city. Arthur was using the build sites to dispose of the bodies of the boys. He was very nearly too late, though. A fight with Arthur ended with Dexter pulling the boy’s body from the cement filled pit just in time, and Arthur getting away.
First Person Sample:
Sample #1:
Sample #2:
Prose Sample: Small, dark room. Blinds closed. Alone. He kept himself walled off from everyone else. His last encounter with Arthur Mitchell hadn’t gone so well and it left him feeling much less social than usual. Even Masuka was keeping his distance. Dexter had been subtle but clear about wanting to be left alone, saying that he had some pretty important work that he needed to get finished. Little time to do it in, blahblahblah. Whatever would give him some time to himself. He needed to think and plan his next move, and do it all quickly, at that. Arthur took that boy. A bit of research told Dexter just why Arthur took that boy, too. It wasn’t just a random kidnapping. Arthur’d been doing all of this too long for it just to be a random kidnapping. Straying off of his usual course now would just disrupt everything. Dexter understood the need to keep things... uniform. Straying from the usual routine didn’t often go well for people like them. He understood that.
Dexter sat back in his desk chair, staring at the glowing computer monitor that seemed to light up the entire room. It was the only light, after all. He was reading over some of the kidnappings that matched up with the dates and locations of Arthur’s kill cycle. Bodies never recovered. Where did you take him, Arthur? We’re creatures of habit, which means you took them all to similar places. So... where?
(from log, continued here)
Special Notes: None!
User Name/Nick: Shannon
User LJ: black_angel_
AIM/IM: AIM - Homemade Prodigy ; Newagedavinci
E-mail: bandakar@gmail.com
Other Characters: N/A
Sail away, sail away, we've miles before the morning,
And further still to go before the day.
They say a crimson dawn means all the sailors should take warning,
But a black sky only means it's time for us to sail away.
The Character
Character Name: Dexter Morgan
Character Journal: born_inblood
Canon: Dexter
Age: Mid 30s
From When?: 4x11 - Hello, Dexter Morgan
Near the end of the episode, right before Dexter goes to the arcade to find Arthur and Arthur subsequently follows Dexter back to the station. No finding out that Dexter's name isn't Kyle Butler, and no death of Rita.
Abilities/Powers: Thanks mostly to his hobby, Dexter shows skill in a variety of areas. Stealth and tracking come in handy while he's stalking his prey. He knows his way around lock-picking tools. His job made him good at fabricating the evidence of a crime scene. He needs to be able to steer the police in a different direction when they're getting too close to whoever he has in his sights. He knows how to be incredibly thorough with research. There's too little, but there's never too much. He needs to be sure, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that his victim is deserving.
While still in college, Dexter took a class for advanced jujitsu. It helps him when it comes to taking down his prey when the M99 won't cut it for whatever reason. His Dark Passenger could be the reason why he took jujitsu in the first place, but he just says that it was an easy extra credit.
He's good with a variety of weapons, though most of his skill rests with blades. They are his weapon / kill tool of choice. A blade to slice, a blade to stab, and one to dismember (and he has a beautiful collection of knives, too :c )
Dexter's smart. Above average kind of smart. It's never really stated, for sure, just how far above average, but enough to make Masuka feel good about himself when Dexter screws up, at least. Dexter was at the top of his class in medical school before he decided to leave it for blood spatter analysis.
Between his job, and his long standing intimate relationship with blood, Dexter can read blood with ease, almost as though it speaks to him. It opens up to him and tells him all about itself. He doesn't need to study it to figure out what happened. Sometimes, just one look is all it takes for him to know, at least, how the murder happened.
Dexter is one hell of a bowler. Even he's a little disturbed by just how good he is.
Power Limitations: N/A
Inventory
- Key ring containing car key, house key, shed key, lab key and key to a trunk containing a firearm that belonged to Harry, and Dexter's kill tools.
- Light periwinkle blue, long sleeved, button-down shirt.
- Khakis.
- Light colored loafers
- Wallet containing driver’s license and various other plastics.
- Miami Metro Police Department Identification laminate.
- Cellular phone without charger ; battery life at 83%
- Wrist watch
- Small black hard-plastic case with capped off syringe inside containing M99 animal tranquilizer
Personality: Dexter’s personality is incredibly complicated in it’s simplicity. He’s emotionally detached from most things, as well as from humanity, itself. He often refers to others as ‘humans’ almost as though he considers himself apart from them. He claims that he’s completely empty inside, with no feelings and no real conscience to speak of. His emotional responses are all just a part of a well-rehearsed act. The only interest he really has in relationships of any kind is where they make him seem perfectly normal. Or normal enough. Everything he does in public is all just an elaborate hoax to keep the monster concealed.
Despite Dexter’s constant insistence that he doesn’t possess any real human emotions, he seems to, where children are concerned. He connects with them, takes an interest in them and sometimes even goes out of his way to protect them and see that they’re avenged for any wrongs done against them. On occasion he’s even set his own needs aside (as well as the Code of Harry) to do right by a child. Though not always for the best, he’s much more honest and about as open as he can be with children. As they get older, though, he loses that ability to connect with them and starts to get awkward and withdrawn around them, as he is with adults.
On the outside, Dexter is just a regular guy. He keeps to himself. He’s a pretty hard worker. He’s a generally nice guy who doesn’t make too many waves. He tries to live his life under the radar. He tries to stay mostly unnoticed so he tries to adjust his personality accordingly. He’s the quiet blood spatter analyst at work. He’s the loving, thoughtful husband and father at home. He’s the caring, concerned brother when he’s with his younger sister. Technically, he’s all of those things and none of them. Just who he thinks he needs to be for the person or people he’s with to blend in, and keep everyone separate from who and what he really is. He doesn’t see, though, that he really is starting to become the parts that he’s playing.
Dexter is loyal, over all detachment aside. Mostly to his family. His sister, his wife and his children. He goes to great lengths to keep his family safe from himself and those like him who could do them harm. There are times when the things that he does are for that reason, and that reason alone. People wind up on his table just to keep them from hurting his family, but also so he can be who he needs to be for them. He needs to keep his urges satisfied so that he can be Dexter Morgan, family man.
Ultimately, the part of himself that he’s trying to hide and protect everyone from is his aptly named ‘Dark Passenger’. When he was only three years old, his mother was murdered in front of him. It broke something inside. He was never quite the same. Since only a few short years after that, he’s felt the need to take lives of his own. It’s the one thing that makes him feel whole. After killing his first neighbourhood pet, Dexter’s foster father nurtured his needs and directed them in the most positive way he could, turning his son into a sort of serial killer vigilante. He kills only those deserving. As righteous an act as it seems, he’s merely doing it for his own selfish reasons. He needs to kill, and disposing of the trash that plagues society is the safest way for him to do it. Killing makes everything make sense to him, at least for a little while. It’s the part of his life that he truly understands. While everything else is just practiced parts, killing is the only thing that’s really Dexter. The ritualistic nature of the kill brings a sense of normalcy to a somewhat hectic life that sometimes doesn’t even seem to be his. The ritual of the kill is incredibly important to him. It’s important that that part of his life doesn’t change. He’s a creature of habit.
Mostly, Dexter is unfazed by the people he murders, but there are some that have a very real affect on him. Especially if they’re people he managed to get close to. His brother is one such case. But it also showed his loyalty. He was given a choice between killing his blood brother or his foster sister, and he chose his brother. He couldn’t kill Debra. He preferred to kill his own flesh and blood over a woman who doesn’t even know him. Killing Brian changed him. He was distracted at work, and screwing up with Rita and saying the wrong things to his sister. Killing seemed to be the only solution to get his life back on track. But he was being stalked by Sgt. Doakes, and that made things difficult. Once the opportunity finally did present itself, he went after someone. A blind voodoo priest named Jimmy. He did everything right until it came time to drive the knife into his heart. He couldn’t kill him. He ended up setting him free. He was convinced that he couldn’t do anything right. It was starting to stress him out and was causing him to make more mistakes. When a new murderer reared his ugly head and Dexter went after him, he didn’t think things through and Dexter’s victim ended up getting away and it almost resulted in Dexter getting himself killed.
Another that negatively affected him was Lila, his sponsor from when Rita believed he was shooting heroin (He’d framed Rita’s ex-husband to get him out of Rita’s life for good by shooting him up with heroin. Rita thought that it was Dexter’s drugs, because he knew the dosage to give him and just how to cook the heroin). He changed around her. She had been an addict and therefore recognized demons. She recognized Dexter’s, but now quite what it was, at first. He got comfortable around her and opened up to her. He even got physical with her. There was a definite change in personality with her, because with her, he could be who he really was. He had no secrets from Lila, but he became more withdrawn from Rita. As he and Lila got closer, he found out that she was a sociopath much like him and there was just a connection that he didn’t have with Rita. Since Rita was no more than a disguise for him, he slipped into an affair with Lila. It seemed rather fickle of him to cheat on Rita so easily, but Lila was the first person he’d connected with on that level since Brian. After a series of events though, it lead to another test of loyalty. Lila tried to burn her apartment down with him, Astor and Cody in it. She was trying to get rid of the kids for Dexter. She couldn’t be allowed to walk free after the things she’d done. When he killed her, though, there was obviously caring and compassion. He’d never cared about the comfort and well-being of his victims before, but he’d injected Lila with a spinal epidural to make sure that she was comfortable and that her death was painless.
Despite his every thought, Dexter does have the capacity to care for others that he has so little in common with. His time spent with Arthur Mitchell shows that. Arthur -- The Trinity Killer -- is much like Dexter, himself. He uses his family to cover up who and what he really is. He wants to learn how Arthur balances the serial killer and the family man, but comes to realize that he doesn’t. Dexter sees how Arthur terrorizes his family into keeping his cover, and hopes that he’s not doing the same to his own family. The more time spent with Arthur, though, makes Dexter come to realize that he would never do the things to his family, that Arthur does. He would never want to hurt them that way. They aren’t just saying they want him and need him in their lives because he’d terrorized them into saying these things. They really do want them in his life, and they really do need them in his life. And he wants to be part of their lives.
History: Dexter was the second son of Laura Moser and Joe Driscoll, and the younger brother of Brian Moser. When both boys were still very young, Laura was killed in a shipping container, in front of Dexter and Brian. Cut into pieces. Harry Morgan, police officer with the Miami Metro Police Department, was on the scene after Laura’s murder. Laura was one of Harry’s confidential informants, and as such, he’d promised that nothing would ever happen to her. He promised that he’d keep her safe. When he saw the two boys in the shipping container, sitting in a pool of their mother’s blood, he knew how he could make it up to Laura, for breaking his promise to her. He only took the youngest of the two boys, though, and left the other there for the other officers to take care of. He took young Dexter and adopted the newly orphaned boy. Brain was left. Perhaps it was because Dexter, being only three years old at the time, had a better chance of coming out of the gruesome ordeal in one piece. Brain claimed that he, himself, was just too messed up to take. The younger Moser’s last name was changed to ‘Morgan’ and thus, Dexter’s last tie to his mother was supposed to have been severed. A new start, so to speak, as it wasn’t long after the murder that Dexter had no recollection of his mother.
It wasn’t until Dexter was seven years old that it became clear just how witnessing his mother’s murder really affected him. Something broke inside of both Moser boys the day that Laura was killed. The only difference was, Dexter had someone to help him find a place to put those broken pieces, once they were discovered. It was at that particular age when Harry noticed Dexter’s tendency to kill animals around the neighbourhood. Animals that annoyed him or just ended up on his bad side, somehow. Harry saw, in Dexter, a sociopath and a budding serial killer. A boy with an innate need to kill. Knowing that there wasn’t really any way to stop Dexter, aside from locking him up, Harry knew that he needed to direct Dexter. He needed to make the terrible things that Dexter did, a little less terrible. He taught Dexter morals and gave him a code to live by. Don’t get caught. Make sure the victim is deserving. Those were the most important. Being a cop, himself, Harry knew what it took to teach Dexter how to cover his tracks, and keep from getting caught. If he was going to kill, he was going to do it properly. Above all, Harry wanted to channel Dexter’s urges in a more positive direction. Harry taught him to be cautious, meticulous and efficient as a killer. Most of all, he was taught to only kill those who were deserving. Men and women who’d done terrible things, but managed to stay out of prison, or who got out before they were reformed. He wasn’t to kill an innocent. He was to be thorough in his initial research and wasn’t to make any moves until he was sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that the person in question didn’t deserve to live.
With the death of his mother, Dexter also seemed to lose touch with his humanity. Harry taught Dexter how to fake human emotions and how to react in certain situations. Not feeling any emotions of his own, he needed that extra guidance. Some of the people in his life weren’t the best examples. His over-reacting, somewhat overly emotional foster sister, for instance. He needed proper reactions that people would find believable. He needed to be able to fit in.
As Dexter got older, he and Harry started to spend more and more time together, and Debra grew jealous of the hunting trips. They weren’t just for sport, though. Not like regular hunting trips. Harry thought that killing animals on a hunting trip would be a safe way for Dexter to deal with his needs. It wasn’t the most effective way, but it served it’s purpose for the time, being.
When Dexter got a little older -- into his teenage years -- Harry needed to constantly remind his son of the Code he’d laid out for him years before. He actually had to go as far as to stop Dexter from lashing out at a bully from school. Since Dexter wasn’t the type to lash out in the traditional sense, it may have ended with the boy being killed. Being a bully was no reason to die.
When Dexter was sixteen, his foster mother Dorris died of cancer. Before that, Dorris had begun to see through Dexter’s act. The reactions, the emotions, everything. She was growing suspicious of her adopted son. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but there was something not quite right about him. She had actually gone as far as to suggest Dexter go to see a psychologist. More guidance from Harry got Dexter through the ordeal unscathed. Harry taught him how to speak with the psychologist. Give the opposite answer of what he thought. Go against his instincts.
Unfortunately, reaching sexual maturity was much more awkward for Dexter than it was for most others. He started to realized that he had no interest in any sort of relationship with either sex. But relationships, sexual and otherwise, would help with his human disguise. Spending too much time alone in public would make him stand out too much and everything was all about blending in with the rest of the crowd. Naturally, he went to Harry for guidance. Talking to and dealing with women. It didn’t really help him to become any less awkward around women, though. Despite that, it all seemed perfectly normal. No one really suspected that it was because he was just awkward around humanity as a whole. As much as he preferred to be on his own, he understood the need to be in a relationship to maintain his cover. He tried to avoid most of the physical stuff, though. Especially sex. It was often during sex when women found out that Dexter’s quite empty inside.
Age twenty-one. Harry was hospitalized due to coronary artery disease. While in the hospital, Harry pointed something out to Dexter. There was a nurse named Mary who was killing patients. She was causing them to overdose on morphine. She was deserving. Dexter was given permission to kill her. Dexter’s first human victim. It was during that very first kill when Dexter started to develop some of his ritualistic tendencies. She was strapped to something passable as a table, and everything was covered in plastic. The plastic made sure that no evidence of what went on there would be found. No stray drops of blood to show that someone had been murdered.
Dexter’s second kill was a man named Juan Rinez. He was a murderous pimp who was arrested but then was allowed to go free due to a faulty warrant. Harry was enraged by that. Dexter went after him. Harry tried to convince himself that training Dexter was the right thing to do, because of a situation such as that. After the death of Juan, Harry walked in on his son while he was dismembering the dead body. He got sick after seeing what he’d help his son to become. Years later, Dexter found out that his foster father killed himself, and it was that sight that drove him to it.
Dexter’s university career was spent in med school and he was at the top of his class but he gave it all up. He decided to go into forensics and more specifically, blood spatter analysis for the homicide division of the Miami Metro Police Department. It helped him to stay on top of the deserving in Miami. He would always need someone on his table and that would be the easiest way to find people to fill that need. There was also the fact that he’d gotten rather intimate with over the years. It was clearly exactly where he belonged.
With his sister’s help, Dexter met Rita Bennett. She ended up being the perfect fit for someone like Dexter. She’d come from an abusive marriage and was therefore completely uninterested in the physical aspects of relationships, much like Dexter, himself. She was just part of his disguise. Their first date went about as well as could be expected. Interruptions due to Dexter stalking his prey. That aside, they ended up in a long-standing relationship. He got along well enough with Rita, and rather well with her children, Astor and Cody. He’d always gotten along better with children, than with their parents. They seemed to represent the innocence that he’d lost so long ago. He connected with them. Plus, he always found children to be much more interesting.
Life as a blood spatter analyst while moonlighting as a serial killer worked out surprisingly well for Dexter. His colleagues saw him as the quirky lab geek who mostly kept to himself and was really good at his job. And Debra Morgan’s older brother, of course. There was a man who saw through Dexter’s disguise though, but not enough to actually know what he was looking at. Sergeant James Doakes had a way of making it painfully obvious that he didn’t fully trust Dexter. Dexter didn’t quite rise to the challenge that Doakes seemed to be presenting him with, though. He just continued on as he always had, forming and maintaining empty relationships.
Another serial killer made himself known and, naturally, Dexter took a bit of an interest. A possible next victim. After a while, the other serial killer -- The Ice Truck Killer -- seemed to be sending messages directly to Dexter. Body parts set up in specific ways and in specific locations to represent images from Dexter’s past. There was a prostitute with her fingernails all painted different colors. She represented the mother that Dexter had lost. Laura used to paint her nails like that. There was a room filled with the blood from the drained bodies (the Ice Truck Killer would drain all of the blood from his victims, and then dismember them) that was supposed to represent Dexter’s ‘birth’. Born in blood.
During the Ice Truck Killer’s reign of terror, one of his victims went free. The doctor who treated that man ended up taking a bit of an interest in Debra, but it was obvious where his interest really was. He was always asking questions about Dexter and wanting to spend time with Dexter and including himself in Dexter’s life. Like when Dexter got informed of Joe Driscoll’s death, and needed to clear his personal affects from his house. Rudy -- Brian. The Ice Truck Killer -- tagged along.
Unfortunately for Dexter, Rita had started to feel much more comfortable to him, and was opening up to the idea of starting a more physical relationship with him. Dexter struggled to keep the relationship sex-free, because he was starting to grow rather fond of her and her children. He knew that if they had sex, she would feel his emptiness, and it would ruin everything. It always did. That changed, though, after a therapy session with a man who was to be Dexter’s next victim. The therapist put Dexter into a deep state of calm, and Dexter started to remember bits of his past. The very past that he’d forgotten about so long ago. Glimpses of a terrified young boy sitting in blood. Becoming incredibly emotional after the ordeal, he sought out comfort. He went to Rita and slept with her of his own accord. It felt real and comfortable. It wasn’t forced, like it had been times before. It made their relationship grow on a more intimate level.
Paul -- Rita’s abusive ex-husband -- tried to weasel his way back into the lives of Rita and her kids, though, which ended up being a problem for Dexter. Paul tried to convince Rita that he’d changed. He still wanted to be a father to his kids. But he hadn’t changed at all. He got rough with Rita one night and Dexter wasn’t going to stand for it. Since Paul was on probation (and an ex-heroin addict), Dexter knew how to get him out of the Bennett family’s lives. Dexter knocked out Paul, took him back to his hotel room, and shot him up with heroin. When Paul didn’t check in with his probation officer, it was revealed that he’d been using again, and he went back to prison.
After some research into that room that was filled with the blood of the Ice Truck Killer’s victims, and why it seemed to evoke certain long repressed memories, Dexter found out that there was a woman killed in much the same way some decades ago, and that woman was his mother. It wasn’t just him in that shipping container where he was found in a pool of his own brother’s blood. He was with a slightly older boy. His older brother Brian.
Rudy, in an attempt to draw Dexter to him, abducts Debra, and leaves Dexter a series of clues on how to find her, and more importantly, him. It eventually comes to light that Rudy, Brian, and the Ice Truck Killer are all the same person, and that person is Dexter’s older brother. Brian tried to convince Dexter to kill his foster sister, so that they can be a family again. Debra needed to be out of the way for Dexter to be who he really was, with his biological brother. Dexter couldn’t kill her though, and opted to kill his brother instead, which left him feeling heartbroken, in a sense. The only person who truly understood what he’d been through and who he was ended up being killed by his hand. The last piece of his long forgotten family was gone.
Sgt. Doakes ended up suspecting -- catching onto? -- the fact that Dexter was connected to the Ice Truck Killer, but he couldn’t figure out how. This lead to him stalking Dexter, to find out what he was always up to, and just what his connection to Rudy was. This lead to Dexter taking up more socially acceptable hobbies like bowling. He needed to seem just as normal as everyone else. It was 38 days before Dexter got away from Doakes long enough to take a victim. A blind voodoo priest. Dexter couldn’t kill him though. He ended up letting him go free. Plagued by thoughts of having killed his own brother, he felt that he could no longer do anything right. He was screwing up with Rita, and at work. He wasn’t exactly winning any points with Debra, who he was trying to kick out of his place (she’d been staying at Dexter’s since her bout with the Ice Truck Killer). In his need to have his own place to himself again, and to have his place back to it’s previous semi-lived in condition, he was urging Debra out the door, obviously being a little less than sensitive about her situation with Rudy. He was even starting to mess up at work. Little things like leaving the lens cap on his camera, and big things like stepping in blood at the crime scene and almost not stopping a woman from getting there herself. The mother of the one who’d been killed. When Dexter caught her, she actually asked him to slaughter the man who’d killed her son. Slaughter him like a dog. Little Chino. He was the man who’d killed that woman’s son. He was the man who she was asking Dexter to kill. He took that quite to heart and went after Chino. Unfortunately, his mind still wasn’t quite in the right place. Chino was big. He was much bigger than Dexter was used to. Dexter didn’t really account for that. Dexter had Chino strapped down onto his table, and the big man broke free once he woke up and realized just what was happening. Dexter needed to get him back, but he needed to be much more careful. He needed to think things through better. He needed to get his head back in the game.
Dexter went after Chino again, but tried to do it smart the next time. Longer range tranquilizer weapons to take Chino down, but he was expected. Chino had people waiting for him. Dexter ran and hid in a sewer for a few hours. He hadn’t really realized that Rita had been calling him while he’d been in hiding. She was waiting at his apartment when he finally got home. She questioned where he’d been and she called his bluff when he said that he was out late, working a case. Then she started to question how secretive he’d been being. Then she started to question the things about what had happened to Paul, since Paul had contacted her and told her that Dexter had framed him. Dexter fessed up to that. He reacted to Paul hurting her. He said that he’d acted on impulse, but when she asked where he got the heroin from, he said that he’d gotten it from the evidence locker at work. Stealing the heroin from the station on impulse aside, she wanted to know just how he’d known how to cook the heroin. Or how he knew just what kind of dose to give a big guy like Paul. She knew the signs. She “knew” that the heroin was Dexter’s. After a bit of a discussion, he agreed to try Narcotics Anonymous.
Dexter went to an NA meeting, though he skipped out early on the first one. They were all baring their souls, and Dexter couldn’t do that. It just wasn’t a good place for him. He tried to explain to Rita that he could get off the drugs on his own, but she knew what it was like, having dealt with similar issues with her ex husband. Either Dexter went back, or she couldn’t be with him anymore. He reluctantly went back because he didn’t want to lose Rita. He even found a sponsor who he ended up really connecting with. Lila. A sociopath just like him, and a pyromaniac.The closer he got to Lila, the more distant he got from Rita, until they were no longer seeing each other. Dexter and Lila ended up in a sort of twisted relationship. Dexter even slept with her because he wanted to, not because he felt like he should. Lila knew who he was and wanted to be with him, despite that. She even set fire to her own apartment just to see him. She killed Sgt. Doakes to protect Dexter (he’d caught Dexter disposing of a body) and tried to kill Astor and Cody just to get them out of Dexter’s life. They were just part of his disguise and with her, he didn’t need that disguise anymore, therefore, they didn’t need to be in his life any longer. Between that and other things she had done, it was clear that she needed to be dealt with. She was dangerous. After trying to kill Astor and Cody, Lila disappeared to Paris. Dexter knew he’d find her there though. He went to Paris looking for her. Killing Lila was nothing like his usual kills. He used a spinal epidural so that she’d feel no pain when he killed her. He said his piece and then stabbed her in the heart.
During his time at Narcotics Anonymous, the police and FBI were looking into the newest serial killer. They dubbed him the Bay Harbor Butcher. Some drivers found the bodies that Dexter had been dumping into the harbor. The Miami Metro PD were, unknowingly, investigating one of their own. FBI Agent Lundy who was heading up the task force looking into the Butcher suspected that it was, at least, someone in law enforcement. Dexter wrote a memoir for the police that said things that would throw the police off the scent, sending them in different directions. Lundy saw that and realized that the Butcher knew exactly what to say to do that to the police. Then it was noticed that he only went after murderers, narrowing it down to the homicide department. It was Sgt. Doakes who got the blame, though. He was found with Dexter’s blood slides, after he stole them from Dexter’s apartment. Dexter got called in by the FBI and as soon as he saw the slides, he thought that he was caught. He was asked about them, and started to confess. Before he got too far, though, and said anything to actually incriminate himself, it was brought to light that it was actually Doakes that they were talking about. They just called in Dexter because he was the blood guy.
After so long, Doakes got confirmation that Dexter was, indeed, hiding something. He witnessed Dexter disposing of a body. A confrontation between Dexter and Doakes ended with Dexter getting shot in the leg, and Doakes being locked in a cabin. Before Dexter could really deal with Doakes, though, Lila’d killed him. She blew up the cabin. One of the major offenses that ultimately lead to her death. With all evidence leading to Doakes, and Doakes unable to plead his case, the murders of the Bay Harbor Butcher were pinned on him and the case was closed.
It took some time due to the fact that Dexter had actually been with another woman, but Rita and Dexter managed to work out their differences and they reconnected. He managed to get his relationship with her back on track. Also without Doakes around, Dexter wasn’t under constant scrutiny at work. Things were looking up until he killed an innocent man. He’d been stalking a man by the name of Freebo, but Freebo was in the midst of a confrontation with another man. Freebo managed to get away, but that just caused the man to turn on Dexter. Dexter stabbed him as an act of self defense. It turned out that the man he’d killed wasn’t deserving. And he was the little brother of ADA Miguel Prado. Dexter still had to kill Freebo, though. Unfortunately, Freebo had been blamed for the murder of the young Prado, so Miguel and the police were looking for him as well. Dexter got to him first, though.
After discovering that it had been Dexter who did away with Freebo, Miguel became interested in that part of Dexter’s life. That darker part of Dexter. They started spending more time together. Surprisingly,Dexter had managed to find another person who knew the real him and was okay with it. Miguel embraced that part of Dexter’s life. As ADA, he had access to terrible men that were previously lost to Dexter. Miguel just kept slipping further into Dexter’s life and Dexter seemed to allow it, much the same as he had with Lila. Miguel started to take things a little too far, though. He was going after the wrong people. He wasn’t bothering with Dexter’s Code of Harry. Miguel killed whoever he wanted to -- usually people who opposed him in one way or another -- thinking that he could get away with it, based on what he learned from Dexter. It was rather distressing to Dexter and he took matters into his own hands when Miguel targeted Lieutenant LaGuerta. He killed Miguel, though it wasn’t by conventional means. Dexter strangled him and left him out for all to see.
Rita and Dexter started to get physically and emotionally closer after the ordeal with Lila and much to Dexter’s chagrin, Rita ended up pregnant with his child. He was given the choice to walk out of her life, and have nothing to do with the child, or stay and be a father to it. He seriously considered leaving, because he didn’t want to be a bad influence on his child. He struggled with the decision, though a talk with Debra did help him to see the other side. He ended up, though, deciding that he really did want her and the kids in his life, and ended up proposing to her. They were married early into Rita’s pregnancy. She wanted it to happen before she started to show, and Dexter obliged.
Being a father and a husband took a toll on Dexter’s “night life”. He was having trouble balancing the family man and the serial killer. With a new baby in the house, family man was taking precedence over everything, much to Dexter’s dismay. Alone time seemed like a foreign concept. Until he found a serial killer much like him. Arthur Mitchell. The Trinity Killer. Knowing what he was capable of after seeing him collapse a man’s skull with a hammer, Dexter thought there was no way Arthur could be living a normal life, but he took interest when he saw that Arthur had a loving family. There was hope of balancing both after all. Dexter inserted himself into Arthur’s life under the name of Kyle Butler, a man who was in Miami without his family. He did whatever he could to stay near Arthur and even started to get closer to his family. Dexter went on trips with Arthur, with plans to kill him after he felt he learned everything he needed from the other serial killer. It wasn’t to be, though, and he had to keep up the guise of Kyle Butler for even longer. The further he delved into Arthur’s home life, though, to easier it was for him to see the cracks. Arthur’s family was terrified of him, and Dexter was actually thinking that the people in his life felt the same. Their own insistence, though, told him differently. Even he could tell that they were being genuine when they said that they needed him.
It was Thanksgiving at the Mitchell’s, and Dexter allowed himself to get overly emotional, and he slipped up, letting the family see him for what he really was. Arthur had been letting his own true colors shine through and ended up attacking his own son. Dexter reacted badly and pulled Arthur off of his son, dragging him to the kitchen. He pulled a knife on Arthur and threatened him, in time for his wife and daughter to see. From that point, they knew that “Kyle Butler” wasn’t exactly who he appeared to be.
Dexter had to kill Arthur. He realized that there was nothing he could learn from that man. He didn’t want his family to be terrified of him. He wanted them to want him and they did. He didn’t want to learn from a man like that if terrorizing his family was what it meant. He ended up witnessing Arthur kidnap a young boy while he was stalking him before the kill. Before he could move on Arthur, he needed to get the boy back. He didn’t know if that was new behavior, or if it was something that Arthur’d done before. Some research, though, told Dexter that it was the latter of the two. Dexter searched frantically for the boy and tried everything he could think of to look into, until one thing came to mind, after stumbling upon the bomb shelter where Arthur was holding the boy. Arthur traveled the country building homes, and a boy had gone missing in each city. Arthur was using the build sites to dispose of the bodies of the boys. He was very nearly too late, though. A fight with Arthur ended with Dexter pulling the boy’s body from the cement filled pit just in time, and Arthur getting away.
First Person Sample:
Sample #1:
- I shouldn't have let it go on for this long. It was stupid of me to think that there was someone who's enough like me, for me to actually learn from. Fucking stupid! There was never anything that Arthur had to teach me. Like one of those wolf spiders, he's devouring his own family. I won't do that to the people in my life. They want me there. They want me with them. Need me with them. I can see that now. I'm not like him. I'm nothing like that fucking monster! I will never be like him. I won't terrorize my family into keeping my cover. They won't ever know that there's a cover to keep. I'll tell them whatever I have to, to keep them from knowing that there's more to Dexter Morgan than husband, father and brother. They never see the real me.
Sample #2:
- You’re the first I’ve had in a while. You should feel honored. You’re the one who’ll let me be who I am, so that I can be who I need to be for my family. They need me to be a good father, husband and brother. I can be all of that again when I finish with you.
[He circles the table and stops at the head of the table, looking down into the eyes of his victim. Fear, confusion, panic, he can see them all in the eyes of his victim. Remorse, regret, understanding, there’s none of that. This man doesn’t understand what’s happening to him. Or rather, what’s going to happen]
[Scalpel in hand, he runs the blade along his victim’s cheek]
You’ve ruined lives and gotten away with it. The justice department failed. Unfortunately for you, I never do.
[He collects the blood from the fine slice on the other man’s cheek and places a few drops of it on a slide. Everything is done with a practiced hand. He holds his trophy up, peering at the blood, protected by two slides]
No one will miss you. People will wonder where you’ve gone, in passing, but you’ll soon be forgotten. You’re just the murderer of the week. Once another rears their ugly head, you’ll be nothing but a bad memory to most. And a slide in my collection.
[He sets the slide aside, and his attention goes back to the man wrapped in plastic. He walks the length of the table and then slides his hand over one of his knives, pulling it free of it’s holding place. He uses it to point to the pictures on the wall, ignoring the protests of his shrink-wrapped guest]
You’ve ruined lives. These are all children who’ve done nothing to deserve this. They did nothing to deserve anything you put them through. Their families did nothing to deserve this. Just pawns in your destructive plan. Children. All less than fifteen years old.
[In one swift movement, he’s back at the man’s head, forcing him to look at the pictures of the children. Prying his eyes open and holding his head to the side]
I’m a monster, and that disgusts even me. My children fall in the age range of your victims, and had it been that Astor or Cody ended up on that wall with the rest [He leans down close and rests his chin on his victim’s cheek] not even prison could have protected you from me.
[He’s nearly growling at the man and he squeezes his face, despite the knife still in his hand, only letting go once he knows that his fingers have left visible marks on his face. He straightens and holds the knife in both hands, pointing directly down at the man’s heart]
You’ll never hurt another child again.
[With practiced aim, he brings the knife down and pushes it into the man’s chest, past his ribs and into his heart. He watches the blood spread from the wound, beneath the plastic. Now it’s time for the real work to start]
Prose Sample: Small, dark room. Blinds closed. Alone. He kept himself walled off from everyone else. His last encounter with Arthur Mitchell hadn’t gone so well and it left him feeling much less social than usual. Even Masuka was keeping his distance. Dexter had been subtle but clear about wanting to be left alone, saying that he had some pretty important work that he needed to get finished. Little time to do it in, blahblahblah. Whatever would give him some time to himself. He needed to think and plan his next move, and do it all quickly, at that. Arthur took that boy. A bit of research told Dexter just why Arthur took that boy, too. It wasn’t just a random kidnapping. Arthur’d been doing all of this too long for it just to be a random kidnapping. Straying off of his usual course now would just disrupt everything. Dexter understood the need to keep things... uniform. Straying from the usual routine didn’t often go well for people like them. He understood that.
Dexter sat back in his desk chair, staring at the glowing computer monitor that seemed to light up the entire room. It was the only light, after all. He was reading over some of the kidnappings that matched up with the dates and locations of Arthur’s kill cycle. Bodies never recovered. Where did you take him, Arthur? We’re creatures of habit, which means you took them all to similar places. So... where?
(from log, continued here)
Special Notes: None!