Dexter Finds a Playground

[lit_gal]

Title: Dexter Finds a Playground

Rated: ADULT

Previous parts:  Dexter discovers the clubs.  Dexter expands on his own.  Dexter runs into trouble at a private party (consent issues)

And now... there are always consequences for actions, and Harry's code doesn't cover everything.

Sensory deprivation (touch)

Dexter woke slowly, no sun streaming in through his windows to wake him, but no cops pounding at his door, either. It was incredibly ironic that he had never been targeted for any of his fourteen genuine kills, but now the police were narrowing in on this mysterious leatherman who had been the last person to see Mark Whittaker III, aka "Logan," alive. Somehow, Dexter didn't think anyone would believe his story about the mysterious Michael and two black vans full of gunmen. And Ricky, the one who had vouched for Michael and more than likely knew who he truly was, had gone mysteriously missing.

When Dexter went to roll to the edge of his bed, he realized he had a problem. His eyes came open and he wasn't in the dark of his apartment with the soft glow of the alarm clock numbers and the city lights dulling glowing through his curtains. He was in perfect darkness. And he could feel nothing. He tried each of his limbs, and found he had very limited movement. A soft line brushed against his cheek, and Dexter realized he was in a sensory deprivation tank with air and water so perfectly calibrated to his body temperature that he could feel nothing, not even the restraints that had to be around his wrists and ankles. He might even have drugs in his system dulling his senses.

Dexter veered between impotent panic and a cold admiration for someone who could have pulled this off. As a predator, Dexter was more wary than most, so it took a real pro to capture him and to do so with so little fuss. If he was lucky, he might learn how they did it before they killed him.

"You're awake," a man's voice said, echoing strangely in the sensory deprivation chamber. It wasn't a question, and so Dexter remained silent. "Name?"

No doubt they already knew, but far be it from him to deny them their petty rituals. "Dexter Morgan."

"Number of kills?"

Dexter hesitated. Of course, if they already had him, they most likely knew the answer, but saying it out loud... that was a different thing. The code demanded that he never get caught killing. Never. But then it seems that he already had. "A dozen or so," he finally answered.

"Number of kills?" the voice repeated, emphasizing the word number. Oh yes, they knew. They had probably found his trophies. Dexter could feel his chest tighten at the thought of that loss, but then he wasn't likely to survive long enough to miss them.

"Fourteen," Dexter answered.

"Describe your first."

These couldn't be the police. Why did they care? For a moment, he wanted to demand some answers of his own, like why they wanted him to say what they obviously already knew, but then didn't Dexter do the same thing? He could kill so quietly that his target never saw death coming, but he didn't. He needed them to see their own sins and acknowledge that they had brought death to themselves. He needed the control. Only now, it seemed that someone else was taking that same control away... several someones because it would take a coordinated effort to arrange this, he was sure about that.

"She was a nurse," Dexter started. Closing his eyes, he described the kill... from Harry's pained request that Dexter stop the nurse who was killing him through his own investigation of her habit of killing terminally ill patients through the sloppy job he'd done with the actual kill. Normally Dexter would feel fulfilled when he relived the memory of his kills. His inner killer would revel in the memory of blood and death, but now he just felt empty. He was recording his own sins before he died on someone else's altar. Dexter just wished he had the energy to feel more upset about it.

The disembodied voice led him through his other kills, asking such specific questions that he realized that they knew far more than he would have thought possible. After they finished with his fourteen kills and how each conformed to his code, they started asking about his times at the clubs. What had he done to the subs? How had he felt? How did the subs react to him? Dexter answered the best he could, but as far as how the subs felt... he had no idea.

The subs he'd gotten back to the club after "Logan's" party had known something was wrong the moment Dexter hurried the other doms out of the room. Several had been ready to safeword out, but they couldn't gagged as they were. Originally, Dexter had meant to leave the main sub tied and come back, but the man's breathing had grown so strained that he'd been forced to get bolt cutters and cut the lock on the gag with the other subs still there. The victim had begged to be let go so abjectly that Dexter had finally promised him that the dom who had set him up for a rape was gone and wouldn't come back.

The subs should have been terrified of him. When they saw "Logan" on the news and realized that the police were looking for the man who had tortured and killed him, they should have feared Dexter. Instead they had looked at him worshipfully. And despite the fact that a half dozen subs had all seen him and knew he was the leatherman who had gone out back with Logan, no one had identified him to the police. It was amusing. They thought he was some sort of great protector, and he wasn't. The only thing he wanted to protect was the code.

"Will they continue to protect you?" the disembodied voice asked.

That was a hard question because it asked Dexter to understand human nature, and he truly didn't. "I don't know."

"Guess."

"If it's easy for them, yes," Dexter guessed. Subs were subs because they wanted to serve... they wanted to feel like someone was protecting them, and the boys at that party had latched onto Dexter. "If the police can charge them with something... drugs, prostitution, accessory to murder... they might give me up to save themselves."

"But you didn't eliminate them." The voice wasn't asking a question, and so again, Dexter waited. "Why?" the voice finally asked.

"They didn't do anything to deserve death," he answered.

"You care about them?"

"I care about the code. You have to be sure a person deserves it before you kill," Dexter answered calmly. He doubted that these people would care that he had followed the code so carefully, but it was something for Dexter to be proud of. He'd never let Harry down... not once.

The voice didn't answer for a long time, and when it returned, it was a different man. The new speaker had a soft voice and a French accent, and Dexter suspected that it was Michael although the chamber distorted the voice enough that it was hard to tell.

"You've answered honestly. You may ask a question in return."

He only cared about one answer. "How did you capture me?" he asked into the darkness. The silence from the stranger felt like a triumph. He had surprised them.

"We ran a tube from the roof into your ventilation shaft. We released a gas which is not currently available outside our organization into your room. Once you were unconscious, we waited for morning and came into your apartment posing as delivery men with a new couch. We removed you with the old couch."

"You waited until daylight?" Dexter asked, admiration in his voice. He never would have done anything quite so public, not with a target who was a member of the police department as Dexter was.

"People are less suspicious of what appears to be normal movements."

Dexter nodded. The chamber was so perfectly balanced that he couldn't even feel the waves that his body must have made. Closing his eyes, he waited for the end now. Would these people make the end slow and painful, or would they introduce a lethal gas into the chamber?

A touch brushed against his lower stomach, and Dexter's eyes came open. He still couldn't see anything, but his skin still tingled where the gentle touch had traced a path just below his belly button.

"You are remarkably efficient and have shown incredible control," the voice offered.

"You're Michael," Dexter answered. He needed to have a face to put with that voice, with that touch. The voice didn't answer, but he knew he was right. Michael was standing outside the chamber and he had some sort of access panel that allowed him to reach in. It made sense. They could stab or shoot or just inject Dexter with some poison without ever taking him out of the chamber.

"Every part of your life is so carefully controlled, but you still feel the need for more control. Even now, you wish you could try and duplicate our capture of you with your own captive. You admire the precision of our strike."

The comment surprised Dexter, in part because it was so accurate. He did want to experiment with the capture method. And the idea of walking in the sunlight, past crowds of people, with a captive under his hand... it was exhilarating. And dangerous. Perhaps too dangerous to be compatible with Harry's code. "I wouldn't take the risk," Dexter answered.

"Hunting alone, no, you would not."

Dexter frowned into the darkness. He always hunted alone, at least since Harry died. And even when Harry was alive, they had only hunted deer, and that wasn't enough anymore. Sometimes he did miss it though, the feeling of completion when Harry would congratulate him on a well executed mock attack or when Harry would admire his knife work when cutting a deer's throat in one deep cut that ended the pain immediately.

The touch returned, tracing up Dexter's middle, over his belly button and up to a spot between his collarbones. He shivered as the touch made his skin tingle, ghosts of it lingering even after the finger was gone and Dexter was again in the nothingness. It was strange. He could only feel those body parts where the touch had brought him alive. It was as if the rest of his body didn't even exist in the perfect nothingness of the chamber. His whole awareness focused on that one line of skin.

"Gus, from the clubs," Michael's voice pulled Dexter out of his strange fugue, "his real name is Brian Moser. He started coming to the clubs to find you. He is the oldest son of Laura Moser. He is your brother."

Dexter frowned. "Harry said I didn't have any relatives." He didn't like where this conversation was going... not at all.

"He has only killed two people, and neither with the finesse you have shown, but when he learns of your other pastime, we have no doubt he will focus on becoming an even greater serial killer than you."

"You can't know that," Dexter argued, even as his gut told him that these people could know that. This was not a simple case of a killer or even a group of killers. These people had taken Mark Whittaker III and now him for reasons he couldn't even fathom, but somehow this was not about killing.

"If he suspects that you are the man the police are searching for, he will begin to track and eliminate the subs who were at that party."

That made Dexter squirm uncomfortably. Harry's code was that he never kill an innocent. Never. But if innocents were killed for him, was that a violation of the code? Certainly, he had no trouble killing Gus if he began targeting innocents, but did he have an obligation under the code to kill him? "That doesn't matter now," Dexter finally concluded.

"Because you do not care for the subs? If that were the case, why risk your freedom to save them at all? Had we not taken Mr. Whittaker, you were prepared to act, even as poorly equipped as you were."

"I wouldn't participate in that boy's death. I wouldn't be manipulated by Whittaker," Dexter answered immediately. He could still feel that empty, cold rage at what Whittaker had done, and he had never managed to sate that feeling by killing the man. It was an uncomfortable sensation.

"But your actions are dictated by the code," Michael pointed out.

"The code keeps me safe."

"The code put you at risk this time, and yet you still follow it."

"Harry knew things. He understood humans in a way I can't. I'm safe if I follow the code."

"The police are moving closer to you every day. Other dominants know you were invited. Even if the submissives continue to protect your identity, they will hear your name eventually. Your experience with the police will make you the natural suspect." The touch returned, running up his thigh, and the tingling heat confused Dexter. He wanted to press into the touch even as he expected to feel the sting of a needle or a knife at any moment. "We left behind a confession letter in your handwriting. And an apology to your sister." The hand continued to run up and down Dexter's inner thigh, and he found it hard to concentrate.

"Why?"

"Because it is part of our code. We do not leave questions behind. But when you forced us to accelerate our timetable in the parking lot, there were too many questions... too many witnesses. Now there are no questions. You have confessed to killing Whittaker after finding out that you had been manipulated into participating in a rape. You are horrified at having helped to hurt that boy, and you have done everything you can to try and rectify the situation, including taking the victim to the hospital. However, you cannot live with knowing what you have done. The rape, far more than the torture and murder of Whittaker, continues to weigh on your soul. You dirty those whom you love by simply being in their lives. It was a far more... human note than you would have managed on your own, but then you are so successful at appearing human that not even the police profiler or your sister will see anything suspicious in the wording."

The hand had paused somewhere during that revelation, but now it travelled up to Dexter's hip, tracing slow circles that made Dexter's normally shy cock start to twitch. "You have your code, and we have ours," Michael concluded.

"And now you'll kill me to complete the mission." Dexter found he was calmer than he'd expected. His own victims usually cried or begged, but he relaxed in the tank and allowed himself to enjoy that slow touch while he could. Either death or torture would end the pleasure soon enough.

"I've killed far more than you have, so perhaps you do not realize what an anomaly you are." Michael sounded strange, the emotion changing the tone of the voice in ways Dexter didn't understand. Human emotion escaped him even under the best of circumstances, but with the echo of the chamber and the lethargy that was settling into his bones, he had no hope of interpreting it. "Do your victims usually beg?"

"Yes."

"But you don't."

"You'll follow your code. Begging wouldn't change that," Dexter answered simply enough. "How many have you killed?"

"Myself directly or from a distance as I commanded a team?"

"Directly."

"One hundred and seventeen."

Dexter heard the number with some awe. "Do you remember them all?"

"Most of them. Some were unimportant. Some are so long ago that I no longer recall specific details."

Dexter wondered what it would feel like to have killed so many that he couldn't remember each one. His fourteen seemed like such a paltry number faced with that. "Will you remember me?"

"Definitely," Michael answered. Dexter supposed that would have to be enough. The hand brushed Dexter's cock, and he let himself sink into the physical pleasure of it. He no longer had to worry about appearances or codes or plans. He had only this one moment, and in this moment, that hand on his body felt good.

It brushed over his cockhead, and Dexter groaned at the raw need that filled him. Nothing existed... no sound, no sights, no feeling but in the inch of skin around that touch. Dexter curled his hands without actually being able to feel them. He couldn't feel anything except the thigh that still prickled from the memory of that touch, and his cock.

The hand enveloped his cock, slowly stroking it to full hardness, and Dexter arched his back and surrendered to the pure, white pleasure of it all. He was so tired of trying to control everything, and now that he dropped all those walls and defense and just allowed himself to feel, his body came alive. Panting for air, Dexter twisted as the hand stroked him harder and faster. His orgasm gathered like a hot ember in his guts, but then it stopped, and Dexter was left with only the ghost heat of that missing hand. No. Damn it. Dexter wouldn't even mind dying if he just got to finish what was promising to be the best orgasm of his life.

A heavy click interrupted the silence, and Dexter squinted as the lid of the chamber rose straight up into the air to show Michael standing next to it.

Blinking, Dexter waited for the final blow. It didn't come. Instead, Michael unlocked his arms and legs, opening heavy rubber restraints. When he tried to sit up, his movements were uncoordinated and he banged his knee against the side of the chamber. He'd been drugged.

"Lay back," Michael ordered as he turned away, and a little part of Dexter warned him that this was his last chance to fight for his survival. He wanted to survive, he really did. But he was just too tired to manage anything more than a weary obedience. He laid down.

The room the chamber was in looked to be concrete. The walls were smooth, coated with something, and Dexter had a fleeting desire to do a blood splatter test against the surface. Would the blood flow down in smooth rivers or trace a meandering course like over concrete. Maybe he'd see his own blood against the white wall. Michael returned to his side with new restraints. Dexter was familiar with any number of toys, and he widened his legs so that Michael could wrap the thigh restraint around his leg easily. He did, and then he attached Dexter's wrist to the restraint. He went to the other side and repeated the procedure, and now Dexter didn't have to worry about the code or fighting or trying to maintain his image as a real person with an actual conscious. Nothing mattered anymore.

Michael grabbed his cock and started stroking it, reaching over with his other hand to sharply pull one of Dexter's nipples. "You have been searching in those clubs, but you have not found what you needed."

Dexter looked up at him.

"You serve your code, but that is a master who cannot change or adapt or answer the questions you have."

"I'm not a sub." Dexter said the words quietly, his anger closely guarded as he thought about what Michael was implying.

A woman just out of Dexter's sight answered. "You don't know what you are," she said as she walked around to the side of the chamber, her finger trailing over the edge where the two halves of the chamber had joined. "Michael, if I ordered you to kill Dexter, would you?" Dexter stiffened at the addition of this new person to a game where he was already confused.

"Yes." Michael answered simply, and Dexter knew he was telling the absolute truth.

"Do you want to kill him?" she asked.

"No."

She smiled at Dexter. "Michael has a code and someone who can lead him... teach him new ways to kill or give him answers." Dexter didn't answer as he watched her. She looked like a socialite, her dark hair and makeup perfect, but he could see a familiar emptiness in her that Michael didn't have. She was like him.

"I will give you a choice," she said with a cold smile. "We are going to remove the suicide note from your apartment, which means that you will be a suspect but certainly not the only suspect. Your brother will react by trying to eliminate any evidence, including the submissives who witnessed you at the party. You may decide if we eliminate Brian Moser before he begins his work or not. What is your choice?"

Dexter froze. He didn't want anyone to die for him, that came too close to violating Harry's code. But if he asked for Gus to be killed with no confirmation-no evidence-that was also a violation. "You have no reason to remove that note," Dexter pointed out instead of answering.

"It amuses me," she answered, and Dexter could see that she would do this; she would put lives at risk because it amused her.

"Don't," he said simply, well aware of the irony because he had no power here to affect anything she did.

"Do we kill Brian Moser or not?" she asked as she stood at the foot of the chamber and crossed her arms, looking at him expectantly. Dexter's stomach rolled with distress, and he had no answer to give her.

"You are more submissive than you have ever allowed yourself to believe, but like all good submissives, you will only give yourself to someone who understands and respects your needs."

Dexter shook his head, but if he had been in the dominant position, he would have taken the hard cock resting against Dexter's stomach as evidence to the contrary. Michael reached down and stroked his balls with his thumb, and Dexter brought his knees up.

"Lay flat," Michael ordered roughly, and when Dexter didn't obey, Michael grabbed his balls so tightly that Dexter shouted in pain and thrashed helplessly for a second. His brain kicked in, warning him that he wouldn't escape the pain until he obeyed, and he put his legs back down into the water. Immediately, Michael's hand gentled; however, Dexter's balls still throbbed with pain and sent streaks of agony up into his body.

"Your code has no answer," the woman said. "Mine does. I will do what I have to in order to minimize Section's exposure and ensure the fewest number of deaths."

"Then you would leave the suicide note in place," Dexter quickly pointed out.

"Yes, I will," she answered, and Dexter looked up at Michael. The man's face was emotionless... not empty like Dexter, just so guarded as to be unreadable. "The only question is how to handle you."

"I thought that was already settled," Dexter pointed out.

"Not at all. If you cannot admit that you are, in fact, submissive and accept Section's leadership, then you are a liability and I will order Michael to cancel you to minimize Section's exposure." She turned away and started pacing again. This might be a trick, some way of trying to get a reaction out of him or maybe even to make him beg, but Dexter couldn't quite figure it out. "If you can submit yourself to us, you could have a very bright future in Section."

Michael's hand slowly stroked Dexter's thigh. The temptation was there, to just give in, to survive by bending to another set of rules. But Harry's code had brought him this far. Could he betray Harry?

"Michael, deal with him," the woman said, and then she was gone, her heels now clacking over the cement floor where they hadn't before. Every detail so very carefully controlled and manipulated. Dexter felt a chill go through him.

"You don't actually care about being good, only about following the code," Michael said thoughtfully as he stroked Dexter's cock. It had soften some, but now it came back to life. Dexter couldn't help it, he strained against the thigh cuffs. "Was Harry in the military?"

"Yes," Dexter answered, even though he suspected Michael already knew.

"He followed orders, and then he tried to simplify those orders into something you could live by. It's time to grow up and live by Harry's real code, the one he lived by. Military men kill when they have to. They kill to protect people or even an idea."

Dexter hissed as the fist around his cock grew painfully tight. "You will follow orders as Harry did in the military. Understand?"

Dexter nodded, his breath stolen by the pain in his cock. Michael loosened his hold and then dragged fingers up Dexter's body. "You will obey every order, knowing that even if you do not understand the order, it is part of a larger plan to keep this world safe from terrorism."

"Whittaker?" Dexter gasped, his skin tightening as Michael rested his palm against Dexter's chest.

"Arms dealer. We had hoped to pick him up after the... party. He had a contact coming into town, and now we must try to identify his buyers before they find another supplier and kill a dozen innocent people in some café." Michael reached around to the back of Dexter's neck. The water was starting to cool, so the heat of his hand warmed the skin there.

"If you fail to follow orders, expose Section in any way, or simply prove inadequate at your job, someone will take you to a room very similar to this one and put a bullet in the back of your head. Failing our code is not an option." Dexter opened his mouth, but he couldn't find anything to say. What if they asked him to violate Harry's code? Would Harry have let the boy die in order to identify terrorists? The code certainly didn't require that Dexter actively save people, but wasn't that what Harry did... save people? Dexter didn't have any of these answers. He couldn't even go through Harry's old case files trying to find some hint of what Harry might have done.

Michael ran a finger over Dexter's lips, and salty water from the chamber dripped into his mouth. "In return, you will work for an organization which does not make mistakes. We are very good at stopping terrorists. The best. You will never again have to hide what you are or suffer silently as you try to understand something beyond your ability to understand," Michael promised.

His fingers trailed back down to Dexter's cock and closed around the shaft firmly as he started stroking. Dexter thrust up, his need so sharp that he didn't know if he could come though the pain. Michael ran a finger over the slit, and Dexter shouted as he came in an orgasm so powerful that it forced the air out of him.

"Harry would appreciate that a soldier follows orders, and he would be more comfortable knowing that his beloved son was safely within an organization that understood and appreciated the talents that he passed on to you," Michael whispered, and Dexter found himself wanting to believing it. Harry had wanted him to be useful... to be safe. He lay gasping long after the orgasm passed, the cooling water now uncomfortable and his balls still aching after their abuse.

"Get up," Michael ordered as he got a hand under Dexter's arm and started tugging.

"Yes, sir," Dexter answered as he tried to obey. Not even trying to reconstruct the mask of humanity that was always so frayed after an orgasm, Dexter awkwardly climbed out of the sensory deprivation chamber and followed Michael from the room.