Title: Second Glance
Title: Second Glance
Author: MustangAlley
Rating: FRT
Warnings/Spoilers: Pretty much everything from s1-3. Violent imagery.
Summary: He feels his demons dig their heels into his back. Some nights they ride him harder than others.
A/N: Avoiding calculus is the only way I can write fic. Seriously. I need help (and coffee, because I have an exam in 4 hours). Triple-drabble, if such a thing exists. Let me know how it went.
It goes something like this.
He's an easygoing man. He remembers names and spouses and kids and pets (and ghosts of murders past).
He understands the unspoken words in a sentence, intuits what isn't spoken but screamed silently. It's his gift, to listen to what isn't present and drag the words he knows are hidden in layers of complexity and guilt and denial to the surface. It's how he is who he is, an agent with a genius partner, a spectacular solve rate, and nightmares that only surface when he sleeps.
(He feels his demons dig their heels into his back. Some nights they ride him harder than others.)
He always has a smile, or a quip or kind word (or a cold shoulder to one ex-almost cannibal, when it was a sign of male bonding and really provided unending peace – since he went away, quiet is found in more than dark corners), and he shares them with less reservation than most. Others in the bullpen remark upon his steady demeanor, and recruits so fresh the ink on their badges is still wet speak of him in hushed tones. 'He's the one,' they say. 'He's the one who can do it all. We will work so he will notice us.' He rarely does, unless they do something exceptional (and stupidity counts, because negative attention is still attention), but they strive anyways, in hopes his fortune may rub off on them.
(He hears the music, smells the candle smoke, sees the brains of a father splashed all over his six year old son. It's a parody of strawberry shortcake, berries and cream replaced by brain matter and cranial fragments, and he only shudders at night when no one can see.)
(Some days it takes a second glance to see the murderer under the designer suit.)
Some days it doesn't.