Dexter met Doakes' challenging gaze, the silence under the Rickenbacker Causeway stretching taut, vibrating with years of animosity and the fresh, raw awareness of their mutual resurrection. The Dark Passenger screamed for action, for the clean, final release that Doakes, more than anyone, had always represented. But Dexter held it in check, his mind a whirlwind of calculations. Doakes alive was a complication of monumental proportions, but Doakes dead, here and now, by his hand? That would unleash a firestorm he couldn't control, not with the Reaper already painting the town red in his name.
"Dancing was never really our style, was it, Sergeant?" Dexter said, his voice a low murmur that barely carried over the lapping waves. "More like a… persistent, aggressive stalking on your part, if I recall."
A muscle twitched in Doakes' scarred jaw. "Don't get cute, Morgan. You're back for a reason. And it ain't to work on your tan."
"The Reaper," Dexter stated, cutting through the verbal sparring. "He's making a mockery. Of the… precision required for certain tasks. He's sloppy. He's drawing attention. And he's using a name that has… unfortunate associations."
Doakes' eyes narrowed further, if that were possible. "Unfortunate for who, Morgan? You? Or the poor bastards he's carving up?"
"Both," Dexter admitted, a rare concession. "His methods are… offensive. And dangerous. Not just to his victims, but to anyone who might be… tangentially connected to the original… Bay Harbor Butcher." He let the name hang in the air, a shared, ugly secret.
"So, you're here to what? Stop him? Protect your goddamn brand?" Doakes' voice was laced with a weary cynicism. "Or are you looking for an apprentice?"
"Hardly." Dexter's lip curled in distaste. "This isn't about recruitment. It's about… quality control. And containment. This Reaper is a loose cannon. He'll bring down heat that neither of us needs." He chose his words carefully, appealing to Doakes' own self-preservation, his desire to remain a ghost.
Doakes considered this, his gaze unwavering. The man was a block of granite, weathered by fire and fury, but still standing. "You think I need your help to deal with some amateur psycho?"
"I don't think you need my help for anything, Doakes," Dexter said. "And I certainly don't want yours. But we both know this city. We both know how it works. And we both know that a killer like the Reaper, invoking the Bay Harbor Butcher… that's a match to a powder keg." He paused. "Batista is already chasing his tail. The media is sharpening its knives. How long before they start digging up old graves, looking for answers they didn't find the first time?"
The mention of Batista, of old graves, seemed to resonate. Doakes' expression didn't change, but Dexter saw a flicker in those dark eyes, a recognition of the shared danger. LaGuerta's ghost hung heavy between them.
"So, what are you proposing, Morgan?" Doakes asked, his voice still a low growl, but with a new note of cautious inquiry. "A team-up? You and me, skipping through the daisies, hunting bad guys together? Surprise me."
Dexter almost smiled. "I think we both know that's not on the table. Ever." He took a half-step back, a subtle signal of disengagement, not retreat. "I'm proposing… a detente. For now. We both have an interest in seeing the Reaper silenced. Permanently. He's a problem. A messy one. You have your methods. I have mine."
"And if those methods happen to cross?" Doakes challenged.
"Then we deal with it then," Dexter said. "But until the Reaper is off the board, perhaps we can agree that Miami is… crowded enough without us tripping over each other."
Doakes was silent for a long moment, the only sounds the lapping water and the distant city hum. He was weighing it. The rage was still there, Dexter could feel it radiating off him in waves. But beneath it, there was a pragmatism, a survivor's instinct. He'd been a ghost for years. He understood the value of staying in the shadows.
"You stay the fuck out of my way, Morgan," Doakes said finally, his voice flat, devoid of its earlier explosive anger, which somehow made it even more menacing. "You see me, you walk the other way. I see you, I might not be so polite next time."
"The feeling is entirely mutual, Sergeant," Dexter replied, his own voice equally cold. "I have my own priorities."
"Yeah, I bet you do," Doakes said, his eyes flicking over Dexter one last time, a look that promised unfinished business. Then, with a curt nod that was more dismissal than agreement, he turned and melted back into the shadows from whence he came, disappearing as silently and suddenly as he had appeared.
Dexter stood there for a long moment after Doakes was gone, the adrenaline slowly ebbing, leaving him feeling strangely hollowed out. He was alone again, but the solitude felt different now, charged with a new, more potent paranoia. Doakes was alive. Doakes knew he was here. And Doakes was hunting.
He forced himself to turn back to the task at hand, to the faint traces left by the Reaper. But his focus was fractured. The Dark Passenger was uncharacteristically subdued, almost… thoughtful. The reappearance of its old nemesis had clearly given it pause. This wasn't the straightforward hunt it had anticipated.
He spent another hour at the scene, gathering what little he could, his mind constantly replaying the confrontation. A detente. An uneasy, unspoken truce born of mutual self-interest. It was a fragile thing, easily broken. But for now, it was all he had.
As he walked back to his car, the first gray light of dawn was beginning to stain the eastern sky. Miami was waking up, oblivious to the predators that had stalked its underbelly through the night. Dexter slid into the driver's seat, the cheap upholstery cold against his skin.
The Reaper. Doakes. And him. An unholy trinity, bound together by violence and the city's dark secrets.
His thoughts, inevitably, turned to Harrison. The urgency to find his son, to protect him from this escalating chaos, was a burning fire in his gut. With Doakes back in play, the stakes were impossibly higher. Harrison wasn't just at risk from the Reaper, or from his own burgeoning darkness. He was at risk from a man who would see him as nothing more than the son of Dexter Morgan, a loose end to be eliminated.
Dexter started the car, the engine a low growl in the quiet morning. He had to find Harrison. Before Doakes did. Before the Reaper did. Before his son became another casualty in this deadly, resurrected game. The hunt had just become infinitely more personal, and infinitely more dangerous.