DISCLAIMER: I don't own Dexter, and I'm not making any money off of this.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This was written (in about an hour) for the Porn Battle. The prompt was Laguerta/Deb, uniform, vice. It's sort of a first season AU (in which Deb never slept with Brian/Rudy). "18" is the Miami-Dade Police radio code for Hit and Run Accident.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Anyone You Think About Is Better Love Than Me
By bank_farter
They've been having sex on and off for almost six months when Maria hears the call come over the radio: 18 involving unmarked police vehicle at NE 125th. Officers injured. Request transport.
A part of her knows before the badge number even comes over the radio that it's Morgan, and something deep in the pit of her stomach drops.
She's mostly used to having feelings like that when it comes to Debra. The moment she met her—still in the garish pink lipstick and belly shirt that made up her vice uniform—she hated her. She couldn't explain it. She'd met people before and knew they would be her friends, but Morgan was the first person she'd ever been introduced to that she just knew, deeply, immediately, and viscerally that she hated.
She spent the first month after Debra's transfer to homicide trying to figure it out. She watched her talking to the other officers, squatting over dead bodies at crime scenes. She catalogued her own reactions. And all she could come up with was this: maybe people are right when they say that the things we hate most in others are more a reflection of ourselves than anything else.
Maria hated the way that Deb was all crassness and ease at the station, the way that she fit in so naturally with the back-slapping white boys club that ran the place. Her little "in" with them was how she got ahead (how Maria got stuck with her in the first place), and she'd never even had to work for that. She'd been born into it, had grown up speaking Cop as a first language.
LaGuerta'd never had that. She had to learn when it was good to slip in the poor-taste joking remarks, when it was appropriate to laugh over a body. She had to work for the things she wanted, and, even then, she ended up getting them mostly through a cruel, lucky accident. If anyone knew about it (anyone but James), well...
And, when she'd finally gotten her promotion, she'd had to give it all up. No more dirty talk. No more camaraderie. Sure, the others still chatted with her, still smiled when she made small talk, but she was brass now. She traded their friendships for her authority. It was hard, but she told herself that it was worth it.
She had to believe it was worth it.
And there was Deb at every turn, doing everything she could to spit on her authority, to make it crystal clear that she didn't think it was worth anything. How could Maria not hate her for that?
Besides, it was mutual. Deb hated her too, and Maria never faulted her for it. Why would she? She didn't need her approval.
But Deb needed hers, apparently, and all Maria could think as Deb pressed her lips against hers for the first time, tangled long fingers through her hair in a futile attempt to pull her closer, was that she should have seen it before. The desperation. The uncertainty. It undercut everything Morgan did. Why had she not seen it?
That first night—on a locker room bench long after everyone else had left the station—made her see a lot about Morgan that she never had before. Namely, that what she had mistaken for ease from a distance was actually quite the opposite. For all her athleticism and quick wit, Debra was awkward. Foreplay with her was all fumbling and elbows, too-hard kisses and muttered apologies when teeth clacked together or nails scratched into flesh too sharply. Simply put, she tried too hard, like she was struggling against her own skin, swimming against a current that wasn't actually there.
Maria wasn't sure if the new knowledge made her hate Morgan less or more, but she ignored the doubt and tugged almost frantically at the buttons on her shirt, pushed at Deb's dress pants until Deb gave up, broke the kiss long enough to drag them down her legs. And then she was straddling Maria, leaning down to drag her teeth over her earlobe and run her tongue over her pulse point. Maria didn't hesitate to move a hand between Deb's legs then, to slide three fingers into her with little preamble and no warm up.
Deb hissed, dug fingers that felt cold against Maria's flesh into her shoulders. And something shifted as they moved against each other. Deb closed her eyes, rose up and then pushed down again, rode Maria's hand with something resembling grace. The little moans and half-whimpers she breathed hotly against the crook of Maria's neck as she let her head lull down had no edge to them. She looked almost peaceful, relaxed in spite of the tension of her thigh muscles straining to hold her up.
Then it ended. Maria strained to press her palm against her clit, and Morgan's eyes snapped open. Maybe it was in surprise, or maybe it was in pleasure, but it was as if she remembered all at once where she was again, who she was with. She clenched at Maria's fingers almost violently, cursed and panted and ground down hard and arhythmically until she finally couldn't take it anymore and collapsed against the bench.
The awkwardness had started again almost immediately, and it kept going the next day and the one after that. Nothing had changed, except for the fact that they both started staying later a couple of times a week.
Maria told herself—still tells herself—that she kept doing it because it was a change, because it was the only time she felt like she controlled Morgan. Because it was the only time that Morgan stopped being herself, stopped being the person she hated. She told herself that it was just sex.
She never considers that Morgan was being herself during their little encounters until she watches her and Angel (god, she hadn't even thought about the fact that he was in the car too) walk into the station after the accident. Angel is in a sling, and Morgan's bandaged and grinning, trying to pretend like she's not shaken, like the most significant thing that happened that day was that "they got the fucker" who hit them. What Maria feels at that moment is somewhere between pity, concern, amusement, and…gladness, which is followed in short order by nausea because she knows then.
They've been having sex on and off for almost six months, and this is the first time it's ever occurred to her that Deb is someone she could care about. That Deb is someone she already cares about.
And, if she thought she was used to those deep-in-the-stomach feelings of dread, she was wrong.
The End