They pretend that they're not waiting up.
Dex hasn't broken into his house in three days.
Lee scowls into his refrigerator, where the gallon of milk has expired and the cheap pizza left over from when Dex ordered to his address has gone bad. He hates wasting food, and he hates even more when it's food that should have been eaten but hasn't. It's inedible all the same, so after sniffing the top of the carton and attempting to reheat the pizza, he grudgingly ties them both into a garbage bag and tosses the entire thing out.
He goes in to the station, where he wraps up his report on last week's aggravated battery and attempted triple homicide while Commissioner Leopold threatens to suspend his badge if he doesn't go home and take at least a two-day break. He stays extra late that night, just to spite her, then goes out to his Camry, half-expecting a blond thief to be leaning against it, idly picking the lock. There isn't anyone in the lot but Lee and the changing night shift, though, so with a curious sense of disappointment, Lee gets in the car and drives home.
He's halfway through dozing off with a mug of tea and whatever's on the television after 11 pm on a Tuesday (it's Criminal Minds) when he hears a knock at the door. Grumbling, he hauls himself to his feet and peers out the peephole, recognising Dex's shadowy form and the glint of the streetlights off his funny rectangular shades.
"Do you have any idea what time it is - ?" is what he starts to ask as he swings the door open, before he gets the full impact of the man dripping blood onto his front porch and Dex grins at him, wide and red.
"Hello-o-o, nurse," he says, and staggers in past Lee, tracking grime and god knows what else onto his welcome mat. "I think I would like to borrow some clothes."
"Holy fucking shit," says Lee, because he doesn't know what else to say. He's probably staring, a little goggle-eyed, because Dex looks at him and woozily waves a hand, which is dirt-encrusted and ragged around the nails.
"Most of it's not mine," he says, flippant, and that's enough to bring Lee back to his sense and shut the door.
"What did you do? Why aren't you in an ambulance?" hisses Lee, who doesn't know if he should call the hospital or the police of which he is a part. He pushes Dex toward the kitchen.
"Work," answers Dex simply, and allows himself to be herded down the hallway. "And here was closer." Lee makes an incomprehensible noise, but Dex only laughs.
Lee is fit to be tied as he sits a wobbly Dex down on a stool and fetches towels and the first aid kit. Dex is remarkably compliant as Lee shifts him left and right, tugging off his shirt obediently and lifting off the dirt with a towel. He's covered in scrapes and bruises, but he's right, most of the blood comes off with the dirt.
"I don't know why I'm not reporting you," says Lee at one point of the night, when he's stitching up a particularly nasty gash on Dex's back.
"It's 'cause you like me, that's why." Dex smiles rather more indulgently than Lee thinks the situation calls for, twitching a little when the needle flashes in and out again.
By the time they're finished, it's nearly 2 am and there are some truly appalling things in Lee's kitchen sink. Dex sits on his stool in the middle of the kitchen, looking rather dreamily around (after two painkillers) at Lee and the mess of bandage wrappers around them. Lee looks back in consternation.
"I'm really glad you were in," Dex tells him with all the solemnity of a three-year-old imparting a great secret.
"You're delirious," Lee informs him shortly, going to wash off his hands.
"Maybe," he agrees, and wobbles to his feet. Lee rolls his eyes, flicking the water off his hands and toweling them dry before he goes to sling Dex's arm over his shoulder.
"Upstairs," says Lee with the sort of finality reserved for temperamental children, which in this case he thinks is maybe not far off. "Bed."
"Ooh, officer, that was quick," purrs Dex, or at least attempts to before pitching into Lee's side. Lee ends up half-carrying him up the staircase and into the guest's bedroom, where he manages to shove an old t-shirt over Dex's head before he curls up on his side and promptly passes out.
Lee draws the sheets up over Dex, tucking the comforter in around him before taking a seat on the edge of the bed.
"You're fucking insane," he tells Dex almost fondly, and leaves his shades on the nightstand.
Lee hasn't been home in three days.
The place his black Toyota usually occupies on the street in front of his house is empty, swirling with dead brown leaves, and his house has that too-quiet feel to it when Dex lets himself in through the kitchen window on the morning of the first day. He drops in silently, taking care to leave exactly one muddy boot print in the middle of Lee's pristine kitchen floor, then stands in the hallway, hearing himself breathe, knowing instinctively that he is the only one in the house and that the air is stirred by his passing alone. Though he's tempted by the obsessive-compulsively-neat stacks of newspaper and the little dish where Lee keeps his keys (empty) to muss up the house, Dex feels compelled to take off his shoes before he wanders upstairs, pausing at the doorway to Lee's empty bedroom, where the sheets lie rumpled and the bed unmade.
He ends up eating some of Lee's cereal and drinking some of Lee's milk, and when the absent detective fails to materialise by midnight, leaves through the same window, taking care to lock it. When he swings by the police station on his way home, he sees Lee's car and feels a twinge of something akin to fond amusement, that workaholic.
Dex breaks in three more times over the course of the next two days, in between jobs (little heists, nothing too major). By the third night there is no more milk and he's eaten half the cereal in the pantry. He putters around the little house, running the dishwasher and flipping the television on and off. By the end of the night, he's slouched into Lee's armchair, having shuffled through most of his old newspapers, falling asleep to the Discovery Channel.
He's not sure if he wakes up to the car motor stopping outside or the sound of keys at the door, but he's up and melted into the shadows by the wooden stairs by the time Homicide Detective Rocher steps over the threshold carrying a duffel bag, closing the door behind him with a sigh. Frowning as he sets down his pack, he looks into the living room, where Deadliest Catch is playing, sound muted.
"Where have you been?" asks Dex as he steps into the flickering light, and Lee bites off a swear as he swivels around, revealing the temporary cane he's leaning on rather heavily. He starts forward as Lee's legs threaten to buckle. "What happened to you?"
Lee gives him a look as he steadies himself that clearly communicates his utter disdain for Dex's concern. "I got shot, smartass." He huffs and limps into the living room, snatching up the remote from the endtable and shutting off the television. "I was in the hospital, where normal people go when they lose a lot of blood. You've probably eaten all my cereal, haven't you?"
He grumbles when an answer isn't forthcoming and hobbles past Dex down the hall. Dex follows him into the kitchen, where Lee is taking in everything from the state of his newspaper clippings to the open pantry. He's scuffing murderously with his good foot at the bootprint Dex left three days ago when he looks up and frowns absently at his sink.
"Did you wash my dishes?" he asks, a little incredulous, twisting to look at Dex. He just shrugs.
Scowling at everything and nothing in particular, Lee shuffles away back down the hall and toward the stairs. Dex, who's come up behind him, takes this opportunity to hook one arm underneath Lee's arms and the other under his knees and lift him up.
"Ow," says Lee, then, "hey," and starts hitting Dex in the knees with his cane, and Dex thinks in perfect 20/20 hindsight that it might have been better pick up the other man from his left side, because then the arm holding the weapon that extends Lee's reach would have been trapped between them.
"Can't let the invalid go up the stairs on his own, can I?" asks Dex, and if his shades were off, Lee would be able to see his eyes crinkling at the corners. He begins climbing the stairs with Lee in his arms, ignoring all protests.
"You put me down right goddamn now, Dexter," Lee growls, low and dangerous, but in the narrow confines of the staircase he can't swing the cane, so Dex is perfectly content to continue to carry Detective Rocher into his room and not acquiesce to his demands until directly over his bed, still disheveled from three mornings ago, when Lee must have got the call. He dumps Lee unceremoniously (but carefully) on his ass and proceeds to pin him to the headboard, smirking a bit when he presses his lips to Lee's just as the detective opens his mouth to say something scathing.
"Welcome home, officer," says Dex cheekily (fondly) after he's rendered him properly speechless.
