This is not an exit.

[icetruckkiller]

There were only a select handful of scenes from American Psycho that really appealed to Brian. Arguably, there were other ways to make the afternoon go by but he couldn't see anything wrong with taking a break and watching someone else kill people was the next best thing to getting to kill people himself

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[darklydex]

All in all, the movie hadn't been too bad as movies go, right up until the chainsaw scene, at which point I left my perch in the doorway and scurried down the hall to the kitchen like a frightened rabbit. Shameful, I know, and even worse, I've spent the better part of an hour convincing myself it was all due to a sudden craving for tea.

Now I'm watching the water, waiting for it to boil. It's taking forever, and I can't help but think that if only it could borrow some of my inner turmoil, it'd go a lot faster. I guess I'll have to settle for cranking up the burner.

[darklydex]

"Why'd you do it?" I ask curiously. If I were to guess, I'd say my companion was cold-blooded like myself. Dispassionate and distant, a killer without reason or regret. But perhaps that's a little self-absorbed of me to say. And so. "Because he was irritating?"

[icetruckkiller]

Brian shrugged again, leaning back in his chair. He wouldn't deny that the pirate was incredibly annoying or that if the pirate had died, Brian would have done the island a tremendous favor, but that hadn't really been a motivation. He didn't really care about shit like that. "Because I could."

[darklydex]

Is it paradoxical to feel a resonance with the absence of feeling? I nod, even smile. Because we can is, after all, the best reason. No need to complicate something as pure as death with meaning or motivation.

"I wonder if I'll get the same chance. Killing dinosaurs is okay, but." I shrug. "I guess you know."

[icetruckkiller]

"I know," Brian agreed. This was better, he decided. Even without Dexter much if anything at all, at least they were connecting on some level. He also still thought that if his brother got a chance to kill anyone, it would be killing him. Again. Because that was the story of Brian's life. All the Morgans had to fuck him over in way or another. "So in addition to killing dinosaurs, what else do you do here?"

[darklydex]

I sigh and lean back in my chair. "You're looking at it. I smile and make merry, or give my best impression. It's not too much different from Miami, really."

[icetruckkiller]

For you. Brian thought about being up the code but he didn't trust himself to be very polite about it. Mocking Dexter wasn't going to help. Also, he didn't feel like explaining how he knew about the code. "Why did you behave like that in Miami?"

[darklydex]

I don't follow. "Like what?" I ask, picking up my tea.

[icetruckkiller]

"Like you desperately need to pass as one of them all the time," Brian replied. By killing your own kind, he wanted to say but didn't.

[darklydex]

"Same reason you did," I reply. "So they don't put me in prison. Or worse, study me like a sociopathic bug in a jar."

[icetruckkiller]

Fair enough. "What about your victim selection process?" Brian asked casually before sipping at his tea. "Don't get me wrong, Dexter. I really like what you did with them but didn't you ever get bored?"

[darklydex]

"Not at all. I don't think it could get much better than stalking another killer." I actually grin at him before sighing. "They're never as impressive up close."

[icetruckkiller]

"Nothing ever is," Brian agreed. What else was there to talk about? Fake families? The weather? He didn't give a shit about the code. This conversation needed to have a point to it. So fine. He could be interested in why Dexter wasn't interested in him. He was still the killer who stuck dolls in Dexter's freezer and left him gifts.

"Okay," he added casually, but with a note of wounded pride in his voice because when it came to trying to get his brother to remember him, Brian was pretty damn sure he deserved an A for effort. "You've been here a month or two. There's barely anything to do. You must have thought at least once or twice about the body parts or the blood or anything else that happened back in Miami. Did you reach any conclusions at all?" He was genuinely hurt too. How fucking lame was that?

[darklydex]

"I..." trail off, actually, because I don't like to think about the blood. At least, not the blood in the hotel room. It twists something inside of me, makes me feel raw and unsteady, and I know better than to show another killer my throat.

"I assumed you wanted a playmate." The corners of my mouth quirk like it's trying to smile, but there's something weighing it down. "I wish we could here."

[icetruckkiller]

"That's some of it," Brian agreed encouragingly. "I know you don't want to think about back before..." He trailed off because he had to have some tact. Before mom got butchered and Harry decided that I was about as necessary as an imaginary friend was not the right thing to say. "Look, when you were really little, you had a playmate then too. Before Deb. Before Harry."

Brian sighed quietly before setting his teacup down and concentrating Dexter, not too thrilled about displaying any weakness either but he was willing to do it. "There's no easy way to say this, so here goes. I'm your brother." Which he would have to prove but he felt better having said something that was actually true.

[darklydex]

As I stare at him, unblinking, unfeeling, I muse that this must be what a stopped clock feels like. The cogs in my head that should be whirring have stuck, and I know the bottom of my stomach should be dropping out, but when I place a hand over it, I find it's still there.

A revelation like this ought to be accompanied with lightning from the sky, craters opening up in the earth...Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that I don't believe him. And why should I? Without hookers to exsanguinate, Brian's out of games to play.

And yes, I'm aware that I'm staring, but I haven't anything useful to say.