Get Out, If You Can

Inhumane Retribution

Author's Note: Hi~ Little prewarning. This chapter holds some graphic violence. So proceed with caution, or rather maybe not the chapter for you if these things bother you. 

5:12PM

Teeeeeeeeeeejayyyyy: Hey. Eden told me that she's worried about you.... Being a problem again? I'm kidding, but I think you might need to talk it out. Meet me at the coffee shop at 6:30.

Dexter looks down at the text message displayed on the screen of his phone again as he stood outside of the coffee shop that TJ had mentioned. He was glad that he had reached out to him, it made him feel better knowing that he was concerned for him and even so caring enough because of his friendship with his partner. He was troubled by what had happened with Eiji and didn't know what he should do now. He had planned to never bring it up and to brush it off as if it were nothing. It didn't surprise him that Eiji would even draw such things, he was an artist after all and of course it was standard to use references from time to time. But something about it gave a very uneasy feel about it. These pictures seemed authentic, not produced by CGI or even photo shopped. They were raw images with no signs of time passed from the incident to the founding. It haunted him at night, his dreams were plagued with the images, his uneasiness causing him to reflect on things that would have been dismissed as Eiji just being himself. Set in a different lighting, a lot of the things that had happened in almost every conversation with the older male now seemed to be grim. And it truly did eat at him, he had formulated so many suspicions and fears, believing that his friend was in fact, truly, possibly a murderer. That he had taken those photos, that he took them for references for his art, that he had caused the state of these mangled forms that were once a human life.

He shakes his head in disbelief, shaking the thought free from his mind, there was no way, there was absolutely no way that Eiji could do those things. He was always very kind and polite, when he was rude it wasn't to be rude, it would just be a statement so bluntly put that he seemed to not notice that the structure of it was implied to be as bold as it came out.

Dexter takes in a deep breath and exhales slowly through his pursed lips, he had formed an anxiety of being out now, in fear that he would run into Eiji, or anyone for that matter. Reality starting to set in that the concept of anyone being corrupted and twisted could be hiding amongst the throngs of people that lived in the same thriving city that he did was enough to make him want to run back to the safety of his shared home with Eden. He checks the phone again for the time, he had arrived a bit earlier because he had set out immediately upon receiving the text, despite TJ saying that he was joking about him being a problem again, that's exactly how he felt to Eden at the moment. He didn't want to burden her with this problem, that he had caused, it was all his fault, and he was probably just making a big deal out of nothing again. He was sure that TJ would be able to clear that up for him, he was Eiji's closest friend and if he knew anything, he knew that they were always together, so he would have had to caught onto something. If Eiji wasn't at home, or at even his own house, he was at TJ's, that's what he said anyways.

The realization of his thought process immediately sparking a dread in him as he looked up and around at the people passing by where he stood in search for the black messy hair that would belong to the person he was meeting, fearfully searching for the counterpart of curly brown hair that could be accompanying it. He jumps and fumbles his phone feeling a hand clasp on his shoulder from behind and whirls around in defense to meet the unimpressed gaze of TJ.

"You're jumpy... not used to being out at night... is it past your curfew?" TJ jokes dryly and holds up the drink tray holding two to-go cups.

Dexter sighs out dramatically in exasperation and takes the cup closest to him from the cardboard holder into his hands, relying on the warmth of the cup to aid his numbing fingers from the cold. TJ glances down and stoops down slowly to retrieve the dropped phone from Dexter. Righting himself he holds it out to him and shakes his head as if in disapproval.