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To Dexter Morgan, loneliness has always been a source of comfort.
It's not a comfort he enjoys. It's just that it's always there. It's always ready to pull him back into its familiarity; an empty, constant tide, when he, willingly or not, needs a reminder of what he is.
He's a solitary creature, in the end.
Sharing his life with someone else just isn't in the cards for him.
Harrison is an exception to this.
Since Harrison officially moved in, Harrison has become his new constant. Their lives - as different as they are - have intertwined.
When Harrison is away for longer than Dexter had expected, and the loneliness starts to creep back in, it no longer feels like a familiar bruise. It leaves him agitated. On edge.
Sitting in the empty dark of his apartment, he stares at his phone screen. Harrison had messaged him he'd be out tonight - but Dexter is still worried - and fuck, he misses him.
Dexter keeps going back to the texts, staring at them like it'll make Harrison come home faster.
Shift almost over
Will be home late, ok?
Going out with a friend tonight
Dexter had ultimately responded with the 'thumbs up' emoticon.
He'd considered asking for more details; the friend's name, where they would be going, when he'd think he'd be back, if Harrison would be up for sharing his live location.
Safety precautions. Classic overprotective dad stuff. Hypocritical, too.
He'd been absent from most of the boy's life. When Harrison had no one to look after him, when he'd been left to his own devices, Dexter hadn't been there. He hadn't even known.
Harrison had built a life in New York all by himself. He's an adult now, and he's free to do what he wants. He doesn't owe Dexter anything - and Dexter is afraid Harrison might slip through his fingers if he holds onto him too tight.
He should be grateful that Harrison even bothers to text him. That at the end of the day, he considers this his home.
Not that he has much of a choice. Going back to living out of vacant hotel rooms would put his job at risk - and couch surfing, which seems exhausting enough by itself, isn't always going to be a readily available option.
This apartment is the closest thing to a home that he has.
Dexter's thumb, which uselessly had been hovering above the empty text bar, twitches, ready to draft a message the moment Dexter allows it.
He won't allow it.
The time displayed on top of the screen tells him it's 11:29 PM. He stares at it until it flicks to 11:30.
He's not unaccustomed to waiting. Patience is a virtue, and it's one of the few virtues he's capable of. He's patient.
11:31.
Sighing, he decides to put his phone down. It doesn't take long before the thing miraculously finds its way back into his hands.
11:32.
11:33.
11:34.
The screen turns to black. He's quick to turn it back on.
Damn it.
He can't take this anymore. He's allowed to be worried, hypocrisy be damned. He is a father, and he's going to act like one.
ARE YOU IN NEED OF A URCAR RIDE?
LET ME KNOW IF I CAN PICK YOU UP SOMEWHERE. YOU'RE ELIGIBLE FOR FAMILY DISCOUNT.
Then, as if he hasn't been desperate enough;
IT'S FREE.
The texts go unanswered.
Dexter is on his feet the moment he hears the rattling of the lock. He probably should pretend he's been busy with something other than waiting - but his brain comes up short. He should've prepared for this in advance. What do normal parents do when their kid is out? Watch TV?
Harrison - or whoever is trying to get in - seems to be having some trouble with turning the key. This buys Dexter some time.
Unfortunately, he's still picking up the pillows in search of the remote by the time the door opens.
Harrison is drunk.
Dexter can tell the moment he sees him.
If Harrison's struggle to get inside hadn't been a dead giveaway, he has that classic, droopy slump to his posture, and he has a disheveled look about him, despite being neatly dressed.
He's still wearing his work uniform, Dexter realizes, discarded of the vest and tie. Hopefully those are safely kept back at the Empire - and Harrison hadn't lost them somewhere along the way.
Before Harrison manages to close the door behind him, (he misses the handle the first two times he reaches for it), Dexter registers the sound of a car driving away. Someone must've dropped him off. His friend, or possibly a UrCar.
Dexter could have competition.
Harrison's steps make it seem like he's just trying to keep himself from toppling over, rather than to move himself forward - but he's clearly set on approaching Dexter.
Once Harrison is within reach, Dexter catches him by his arms. "You're drunk," he says, stating the obvious. He supposes it's as good of a greeting as any.
"I needed something to clear my head." Harrison talks as though he has to string the words together on a detective's evidence board, pin for pin. He's trying too hard to sound sober.
"Did it?" Dexter asks.
Harrison blinks, slowly. "Did what?"
"Did it clear your head?" Dexter clarifies, enunciating his words. He taps his knuckles against Harrison's temple for emphasis. "Knock knock. Anything left alive in there?"
Harrison rolls his eyes and lets out an annoyed huff - but his lips are quick to betray him, already blossoming into a stupidly fond smile that stretches out into his alcohol-blotched cheeks. Cute.
Dexter can't resist teasing him. It's his duty as a father. "Do you even know where you are right now?"
"I am in a serial killer's basement," Harrison says. His smile has wavered a little - which seemingly has to do more with the focus his speech requires, and less with the grisly subject matter at hand. "And you," - he clumsily pokes him in the chest a few times - "You are a serial killer."
Shit, Dexter thinks, humorously. He's good.
"Guilty as charged."
Poke. Poke. “Are you gonna kill me?” Harrison asks.
“You leave me no choice,” Dexter says, dramatically. And, as he takes Harrison’s face in his hands, he adds, in a quiet, buzzing murmur; “You know my secret. I can’t let you go.”
Dexter recognizes he gets this way with his victims, too. He’s not above playing with his food - metaphorically speaking. It's a guilty pleasure he allows himself to indulge in.
With his son, it’s different. Of course it’s different.
This is his way of doting on him.
“I'm gonna have to kill you, Harrison," he continues with a grin, "M'gonna have to cut you up into pieces."
Harrison, either sober enough to grasp he's being messed with, or drunk enough to lack any semblance of survival instinct, gazes at his father with nothing but reverence.
A lamb obediently awaiting slaughter.
Harrison even seems enthralled by the idea of it. His eyes absently drift down, lingering elsewhere before flicking up to meet Dexter's again. He's clearly disoriented.
"What, aren't you gonna put up a fight?" Dexter teases. He shakes Harrison's head a little, hoping to rile him up, revive him, restore his wits.
It works.
A disgruntled noise leaves Harrison's throat as he tugs at Dexter's arms, urging him to stop. "I don't want to fight," he groans. He has given up on trying to sound sober, and his face is all sulky now.
Dexter finds it endearing. "Okay," he sighs in acquiescence. He's been teasing the boy enough. "No fighting."
"But you should kill me," Harrison says, like a solemn afterthought. "I deserve it."
He doesn't seem as thrilled at the prospect of being on the kill table as he'd been before. It's different now.
Harrison had said he needed something to clear his head. Clear his head from what? Ryan Foster's murder seems like a good contender - Harrison had nearly turned himself in because of it - but Dexter had made the assumption Harrison had since moved on.
Dexter internally debates the best way to approach him about it. Then, he begins to wonder if he should even be approaching it at all.
While he wants Harrison to confide in him, alcohol, evidently, can make emotions somewhat of a minefield. Dexter shouldn't just push him into it.
Should he change the subject?
Harrison's body collapses against him. It's a haphazard attempt at an embrace - and it nearly gives Dexter a heart attack, but he doesn't hesitate to hoist the boy into his arms.
"You doing alright there, bud?"
In the absence of a reply, Dexter closes his eyes and idly strokes Harrison's head. Tonight's a lucky night. He never gets to hold his son for this long.
"I wish you'd love me." Harrison murmurs into Dexter's shoulder.
Dexter's fingers twitch at the words in reflex, and inadvertently, they curl into Harrison's hair like a phantom hold.
His son thinks he doesn't love him.
Dexter shouldn't be surprised. When it had come down to expressing it verbally, he'd purposefully danced around the word, ending up portraying it as something love-adjacent. Something just as dedicated, just as unconditional.
So similar, it might as well be the real thing.
Because it is.
For a long time, Dexter had held onto the belief that, as a psychopath, he'd never be burdened with the weight of loving someone.
Just the weight of faking it.
Love was reserved for those capable of empathy. For those with an inherent sense of morality, and not one that was taught. Love was reserved for those who didn't stuff garbage bags with human limbs on their free nights.
It had seemed reasonable enough. Love, as far as Dexter was concerned, just wasn't in his nature.
Harrison is an exception to everything. Every rule he'd ever believed in.
Dexter loves that boy to death.
He's vaguely aware that his feelings aren't strictly paternal, that it blurs some lines here and there, but he can't expect his brain to get all the details right, with him being what he is.
It's still love. It's not love-adjacent, it's the real deal. He recognizes it in his blood, in his bones, in all that he is, and all he is not.
Harrison deserves to know the truth.
Dexter had been meaning to tell him, but heartfelt conversations aren't exactly his forte - and when it comes to Harrison, he's afraid of rejection.
Harrison clearly wants a father that loves him. He just said as much.
It's a vulnerability Dexter should allow, for his son's sake. This might not be the right time for it, considering Harrison is drunk out of his mind - but there never is a right time for something like this.
It could be too late, one day.
He deserves to know.
Taking Harrison by the arms, Dexter nudges him back, gently, creating just enough distance to meet each other face to face - though Harrison is quick to lower his gaze, avoiding Dexter's eyes.
A deep breath. A long, shaky exhale that marks a confession-to-come. He can do this. "Harrison-"
Suddenly, Harrison's hand is on Dexter's chest, where it clumsily slides around until it finds the beat of his heart.
Badum. Badum. Badum.
"I wish you'd -" Harrison seems possessed by desperation itself, his fingertips turning claw-like, digging into Dexter's sternum as if he's trying to pierce through the flesh underneath. "Wish you'd fuck me."
Dexter’s confession dies on his tongue. The words he’d been so close to setting free, now obsolete, leave him with a putrid aftertaste.
This isn't right. This can't be right.
"Hey," he says, cautiously. "I don't think you know what you're saying."
The fabric of Dexter's shirt creases, stretching into Harrison's tightening first. "Wish you'd fuck me." he repeats.
Oh, Dexter thinks, unhelpfully, as the entire world plummets down on him, squeezing the air out of his lungs. Oh. At least he has the decency to not utter it out loud - though he isn't sure how that holds up to not saying anything at all.
His heart, beating against the palm of Harrison's hand, remains steady. Dexter thinks it might be the only steady thing about him. He has to pull himself together. He needs to make sense of this.
Harrison doesn't look sexually aroused. He looks like he's on the verge of tears.
This isn't seduction. Harrison is just... begging him.
If Harrison has the dark passenger - and that's an if - he could potentially be hurting himself in order to avoid hurting others. Drinking could be a part of that. This could be a part of that, too, wanting to be taken advantage of in some way.
Even without bringing the dark passenger into it, it'd make sense. Harrison has been through a lot. Self-destruction can be a coping mechanism. Sex can be a coping mechanism.
Or, maybe, Harrison believes it'll be the closest he'll ever get to receiving Dexter's love.
He doesn't know he already has it.
"You don't-" he begins, and sighs, frustrated with his own lack of poise - "mean that."
"You can do anything you want to me," Harrison rushes out, his words slurring together into one big, forbidden thing. "I won't cry, I won't complain," his voice shakes, cracks, falls over itself - "unless - unless that's what you want-"
"Harrison," Dexter repeats, more urgently this time. "Stop."
Silence falls between them. He watches the desperation in Harrison's eyes fade into something that looks too much like grief. Like heartbreak.
Dexter wants to ask him, point-blank, what this all is about, but he has a hunch Harrison will just reiterate what he already said.
"Listen," Dexter places his hand over Harrison's, hoping to ease the steadfast grip the boy has on him. "All I want is for you to be okay."
It's a lie. Dexter is aware of that. He knows he's only saying what he thinks he ought to say, as a father.
Harrison is the forbidden fruit Dexter had believed himself to be content with merely observing, coveting, never taking. Never consuming. He hadn't even dared to consider it an option.
It still shouldn't be considered an option, he tells himself - but here Harrison is, serving himself up on a silver platter. He'd let his father eat him alive.
Shit. Dexter can't deal with this right now. But he's fine. He's fine.
For once, he's relieved he doesn't get hard easily. It would be significantly more difficult to navigate this situation with a raging boner.
Harrison lets out a strangled sob, but he surrenders, his fingers loosening, slowly folding out underneath the touch of Dexter's hand.
"Let's get you into bed." It's not a suggestion, and it doesn't sound like one. Dexter's voice makes it very clear that this is non-negotiable. "I think you should sleep this off."
Harrison shakes his head. "No," he protests, like he has a say in the matter.
"Yes," Dexter refutes. "I do think you should sleep this off." Determined, he turns the boy around and wraps an arm around his back, trying to coerce him into the direction of the bedroom. "Morpheus awaits."
"Morpheus can fuck off," Harrison sluggishly groans. He starts stumbling over his own feet like he's never had to use them before. He can walk better than that.
He just doesn't seem to want to.
Dexter has to resort to hooking an arm around Harrison's waist and taking most of his body weight. When Harrison stumbles, or drags his feet over the floor without bothering to pick them up, Dexter will be right there to drag him along.
When Dexter attempts to guide him through the door, Harrison makes a sudden swerve, opting to bump into the wall instead. He leans against it, and then proceeds to let out a miserable groan, as if he hadn't been the very one to put himself in that position.
Dexter shouldn't find it endearing. "Just a little, uh, more to the left," he says. "I'm sure you'll find it."
Harrison stops protesting after that. The amused tone to his father's voice seems to have made him bashful.
He allows Dexter to guide him through the door - with his coordination now miraculously improved - and he allows Dexter to lower him down onto the bed. He's about to let himself plunge in - but Dexter stops him.
"Wait. Let me untie your shoes."
Harrison allows that, too. So far, so good.
"You want to keep your socks on?" Dexter, now on his knees, lifts up his head to look up at him.
Harrison, who appears to have been too distracted to register the question, blinks. He then nods, sheepishly. There is a wild flush to his cheeks. "Okay." He doesn't seem to have the faintest idea of what he's agreeing to.
"Do you want to keep your socks on?" Dexter enunciates every word this time for good measure, though his speech hadn't been the problem in the first place.
Harrison's face twists into a frown. Lethargically, he asks; "Why would I want that?"
And so Dexter dutifully frees him from them.
Harrison pulls his legs up to his chest, and scoots himself back against the headboard. He folds his arms over his knees and rests his chin upon it, curling himself into an upright ball.
Dexter can't imagine it'll make for a very comfortable sleeping position. He lifts the covers, hoping Harrison will slide under them.
He doesn't.
So Dexter lingers, awkwardly, unsure of how to proceed. Maybe this is his cue to leave. There's not much more he can do here. He's not going to force his son to lay down.
But he could stay. Just for a moment. He could tuck Harrison in - if he'll allow him to - just like Dexter had done a long time ago. He wonders if Harrison still remembers it.
"Still not tired?" Dexter sits down on the bed, next to him. He tenderly reaches out, brushing Harrison's bangs to the side, and smiles to himself when they promptly fall back into place. "I remember when it used to be blonde." His voice is a drone so quiet, it barely breaks the silence. "Never thought it'd grow to be darker than mine."
Harrison looks haunted, in the way he's watching him.
Dexter continues to brush his curls out of the boy's face, over and over again, as if eventually they'll end up surrendering to the power of sheer persistence. "I can try my hand at trimming it sometime." he coos. "It's getting into your eyes."
After a moment of lingering, Dexter presses a kiss to his forehead. It's a familial gesture - it's devoted, it's loving. It's what Harrison needs.
When he pulls back, however, Harrison looks more broken than before. His red-rimmed glaze over with tears, soon sliding down his rosy cheeks in glistening, wayward stripes.
When Harrison speaks at last, his voice is a small, high-pitched, fragile thing. "Why don't you want me?" Immediately, he seems to regret asking, his eyes squeezing shut in mortification. "Don't - fuck, don't answer that."
Dexter wouldn't have been able to provide him with one.
Harrison nods, dejectedly, as if he's confirming an unspoken truth. "I already know why."
Dexter blinks. "You do?"
Harrison lifts his head. He has a red mark on his chin from where it'd been pressing into his arm. He blinks, pointedly. "I'm not stupid."
Dexter has offended him.
Harrison retreats back into his cocoon, this time fully burrowing his head between his chest and his knees. "I was stupid enough to hope." His muffled voice has a resentful edge to it. "But I'm not stupid."
Hope. Harrison had been hoping.
For how long?
Dexter has to confront the possibility of Harrison loving Dexter in a similar way Dexter loves him. This could be more than the result of drunken stupor. This could be more than self-destruction.
But Harrison is such a young thing. He's freshly eighteen. Would he really be attracted to his serial killer father, already past age fifty?
"Hypothetically," Harrison says, with a pause in between each syllable to avoid stumbling over the word, "if I was someone else, or if you didn't... if you didn't know me-"
The question is left insinuated. 'Would you want me, then?'
The answer is no - which in itself, is a good answer. It's appropriate - just not in the way Dexter means it.
"I'm not really a hypothetical kind of guy." Dexter tries to sound apologetic about it. It comes out detached, instead.
He doesn't get much of a response from Harrison - aside from him rolling even more tightly in on himself like a pill-bug. Alcohol tends to make people slack, and sprawl out. His current position really can't be comfortable for him.
"Are you gonna let me tuck you in?" Dexter asks, feeling at a loss.
"M'not gonna sleep," Harrison sniffles in the enclosure of his cocoon.
"You'll feel better tomorrow."
"You'll hate me tomorrow."
"That's not true," Dexter says. "Look at me."
Hesitantly, Harrison does, his eyes peeking out from behind the safety of his arm.
"There is nothing you could say - or do that would make me hate you." Dexter hopes Harrison can hear just how much he means it. He loves him unconditionally.
He'll tell him tomorrow. He'll tell him that he loves him, and that he always will, and Harrison doesn't have to give him anything in return.
Finally, Harrison unfurls himself. His limbs move awkwardly as he finds a new position, one that has him slumping closer. Then, as if having forgotten about the concept of subtlety altogether, he glances down at Dexter's lips.
Shit.
Dexter faintly realizes Harrison had done this before. He'd seen it happen, had explicitly taken note of it, yet hadn't thought to interpret it. Harrison had wanted to kiss him, then. How many clues had he missed? And how long had he had to miss them for?
"You wouldn't hate me if I kissed you?" Harrison's voice is sluggish, thick, and still carries the weight of crying - but he's asking it like he's challenging him. Like he's daring Dexter to disprove himself.
Dexter isn't going to retract his statement - which puts him in a very, very dangerous position. "No," he says. He looks at his son's lips, dooming himself, dooming the both of them.
Harrison reaches for Dexter - and once he has him, he kisses him.
Dexter had seen it coming. He'd felt it on his lips before it had even begun, and he'd done nothing to prevent it. He's actively allowing it to happen.
He doesn't kiss him back; under the guise he's not taking advantage of him. Maybe then, Harrison won't hate him once all of this is over, once sobriety has washed him clean.
When Harrison's tongue pushes into Dexter's mouth, licking at his teeth and slipping past them, Dexter gets his first good taste of him. He can taste the alcohol, the salt of tears, he can taste Harrison.
Harrison kisses him, sloppily, and open mouthed - until his lips go slack, idle, as his tongue takes center stage. He's become fully dedicated to licking Dexter's mouth.
It's the strangest way Dexter has ever been kissed - if this can be considered kissing. Dexter isn't sure. As far as he knows, this ignores all the implicit rules of what a kiss should be, even when he's to ignore the fact that lips are no longer involved. Harrison doesn't bother turning it into something cohesive, something that can easily be reciprocated. He just takes as much as he can get.
He knows he's on borrowed time.
The most filthy sounds fill Dexter's ears; Harrison's heavy, vocal breaths, the little moans that slip between. The wet, sloppy clicking noises his tongue makes as he flicks it into Dexter's mouth.
There is a heat rushing to Dexter's groin he doesn't want to acknowledge. His eyes, which he'd negligently kept open throughout it all, finally fall shut in pleasure.
This isn't going to be easy to explain to a sober Harrison tomorrow. The 'I was caught off guard' excuse only holds up for so long - and they're way past that point, now. He won't be able to justify himself.
He can only go down from here.
As if to seal his own fate, Dexter slides his tongue up to meet Harrison's halfway.
It takes Harrison by surprise. The boy lets out a raw sound of astonishment - which melts into an elongated, shuddering moan.
Dexter's heart drops before it launches itself right back up, up to his throat where it beats like a wild, wild thing. He remembers standing at the edge of a rooftop - his hand splayed over his ribcage, testing out the beat of his heart, needing to feel something.
This must be what jumping off feels like.
The thrill of love, the thrill of plummeting himself into the unknown. He's falling, and he's dragging Harrison along with him -
In a disoriented haze, they're rubbing their tongues against each other, creating a hot, rapid friction that makes Dexter's cock swell in anticipation. It's over for him. It's so over. He's almost fully hard.
It doesn't help that Harrison moans like he's already being fucked.
Shit, shit shit shit.
"Dad..." Harrison whines into his mouth. "Da-ad."
There it is.
Dexter's wake up call.
He places his hand on Harrison's shoulder, about to push him away, but Harrison hungrily starts chasing after the reciprocation he'd gotten. He's wildly prodding at Dexter's tongue, begging him to do it again.
Upon receiving no response, Harrison, too adamant for his own good, tries to crawl onto his father's lap - and while he does manage it, he nearly tumbles right off, which brings an awkward end to the kiss.
Dexter has no choice but to steady Harrison's body against his own. "Easy," he breathes out. "Easy." His lungs are burning. He hadn't even noticed he'd been deprived of air for too long. His stamina isn't what it used to be. He's getting old.
Harrison, while just out of breath, remains vigorous. He keenly slides deeper into Dexter's lap, settling himself - and moans when their erections come to press against each other. "You're hard." he says, like an exhilarated accusation.
Dexter's veins are buzzing with it; this manic, sickening hunger that beats inside him like a second heart. He knows he wants Harrison - but this is a type of lust he doesn't recognize - but it had been lurking within the darkest parts of his mind, waiting. Waiting for this.
It's drowning out his thoughts, his better judgment. It intends on taking him over.
It's not just... sexual. It's depraved. Perverse.
And it's targeting his son.
This thing, this urge, wants to defile him.
It wants to remind him that he's Dexter's son, that they're bound by blood while it fucks him raw. It wants to fill his hole with Dexter's seed, the very same seed he was born out of. It wants to claim him, corrupt him from the inside out. It wants to live inside him, the way it lives inside of Dexter, like a parasite. It's hungry, it's consuming, like fire. It's violent.
It wants, it wants, it wants - and Dexter can't surrender to it. He can't surrender control more than he already has.
It's his duty to keep Harrison safe. This includes keeping Harrison safe from Dexter, himself.
Harrison tries to haphazardly kiss him again, and Dexter is quick to stop him. Maybe he's a little rough in the way he does it, but he has to bring an end to this.
When he urgently prompts Harrison to get off of him, directing the boy back to the mattress, Harrison doesn't protest. He goes willingly - even eagerly.
Okay. That was easier than Dexter thought it would be. He thought he'd have to end up prying him off.
It's only when he gets up to his feet, and sees the most betrayed look known to man, that he realizes Harrison had expected him to follow.
Harrison had expected Dexter to climb on top of him. He'd expected Dexter to fuck him.
"Sorry," Dexter breathes - and then he's out of the door, shutting it behind him as if he can shut everything out altogether - his mistakes, his arousal, everything.
Dexter Morgan. Father of the year.