“Oh,” a laugh escaped your lips as if the expression on his face was the best joke anyone could have ever told you. “That's the most genuine reaction I've ever seen on your face, you know?”

Dexter didn't even pay attention to your mockery, his eyes definitely focused on the blood slide you held between your fingers as if that wasn't the greatest proof you could have against him. A piece of evidence... A fucking piece of evidence right in your hand when he thought he had buried everything about it in his backyard. Goddamnit, weren't you his best friend? Is that what shitty best friends do?

The smirk on your face faded a little, but it didn't disappear, you just leaned back a little further on your couch, being glared at by his gaze. “Come on,” you used your foot to poke his thigh and fuck, he'd rip your foot off if you didn't get it away from him. “Whose is this, huh? The driver's... The smuggling couple's or that psychiatrist's? Tell me, I'm curious.” Your curiosity would kill you one day, perhaps the man right next to you was responsible for that.

“And why do you want to know?” His voice came out cold, husky, not that it didn't sound cold normally, but there was something about the way he hated being caught by you — by whom he had previously considered so harmless. “I'm more interested in how you managed to find it, you nosy little... Thing.”

That was a normal Friday, you invited him to your house as you always did; pizza and cheap wine watching some random show that made you forget the weight of adulthood while your head was in his shoulder — until you decide to ruin his mood as quickly as you both finished the pizza. “You can't expect me to let you see the card up my sleeve.” Your answer only frustrated him a little more, Dexter was trying very hard to understand how you were with one of his blood slides. “But, let me tell you a secret: your trophies are cute... Too bad you buried them.”

The last part was whispered as you approached him on the couch and made him threaten to raise one of his hands to hold your wrist, but he gave up halfway, afraid somehow. “You mean you've seen them before?” He was holding back, holding back solely because you were the one who knew more than he wanted you to know and the idea of hurting you, honestly, didn't seem pleasant to him.

“I just checked to know if your collection was as beautiful as mine.” At first, he let the words pass, but soon he turned them over in his mind and thought more clearly about what had just come out of your lips. Dexter couldn't bring himself to ask, though his expression did it for him. “You're not the only one with a twisted mind here. You're just the celebrity, butcher.”

The nickname made him look away, as the media called him without knowing he was he. He couldn't believe in you, the image he had of you was not of someone who acted like him. “Prove,” he simply said. “Prove I'm not the only one with a twisted mind here.”

Challenge or not, you gladly complied when you brought him your own little trophies. He kept a drop of blood, you kept strands of hair with dates, not of birth, but of death. Dexter found it... Curious, a little more shocking, maybe, still finding it hard to believe how ironic life could be at that point. “And what will be your trophy when you have to deal with a bald guy?”

His question made you laugh, though it wasn't a joke — he just wanted to understand. “I can keep a tooth... Or an eye.” He nodded silently, still looking at the dates you'd written down and remembering a few recent instances that matched them. It was you all along, right under his nose... And the police's. “Are you scared?”

He sneered, his eyes slowly returning to your face in a way that made him look like an animal. “No,” he whispered. “I'm just fascinated by how good you are at this.”

Coming from him in that situation, you didn't know if he was truly fascinated or if he was just finding a way to make you speak. “I just want you to tell me, exactly, how you found out about me, about everything... About that.” The blood slide, his blood slide.