Through every forest, above the trees
Within my stomach, scraped off my knees
I drink the honey inside your hive
You are the reason I stay alive

-Nine Inch Nails, "Closer"

Ars Desideri (The Art of Longing)

Chapter One: Down the Drain

Jesse arched against his lover's body, feeling the heat and the sweat between them. He felt the bite of fingernails in the soft flesh of his neck, holding back the air until he gasped, and then that mouth was drinking from his, the air filling his chest in a rush as he felt a release like he'd felt with no other.

Hours later, deep in the night, spent and sated, Jesse rolled from the bed and went into the bathroom, turning on the water and waiting for it to heat. Stepping into the hot stream, he felt new waves of pleasure from the caress of the water over his young body. Eyes closed, he opened every sense to the shower's caress. When a long-fingered hand slipped past the curtain to stroke his moist skin, he groaned and turned once again into the arms of his lover.

The water ran over both bodies, once more entwined in a passionate embrace. At the height of his climax, Jesse felt another sensation, one he had never felt before, but it instantly fed his pleasure, and he felt another groan low in his throat. His lovers lips left his wrist, touched his neck, and he felt the soft tongue on his flesh.

Then through the pleasure, he felt something else. A sharp ache, spreading from his wrist, up his arm, into his head. He cried out, tried to pull his arm free from his lover's hand, but couldn't. It was dark, only the flickering light of a candle outside the curtain, but he could still see the blackness that boiled away in the water at his feet.

Then he heard his lover's laughter, deep and musical.

The Starlight Motel was little more than a strip of ten rooms facing the street, and the parking lot was easily filled by the police vehicles. Eames pulled the SUV up to the curb adjacent to the office, and took one last swallow of her coffee as she pulled the keys from the ignition. As she glanced through the windshield at the motel, her eyes met those of a young girl, standing in the open office doorway, barefoot, clad in only a t-shirt, skinny arms wrapped around herself.

"I hate New York," she said dryly to her partner.

Goren, stepping out of the car, grabbed his binder from the dashboard and shook his head. "Wish it was only New York."

Eames rounded the car and joined her partner as he walked across the parking lot. They weaved one behind the other through the jumbled vehicles, their destination marked easily by the traffic.

As they approached, two men appeared in the doorway of number seven. The first was clearly a detective, his badge clipped to his belt. His hand was on the upper arm of the other man, guiding him out of the room.

"You're going to have to..." the detective was saying, his eyes fixing Goren and Eames. "Look, Mr. Daughtry. Here's your Major Case detectives." He let go of the man, scowling, and stalked away down the sidewalk, shaking a cigarette out of a pack and lighting it.

Goren watched the man go as his partner addressed the tall, well-dressed man on the walk outside the room. "Mr. Daughtry, I'm Detective Eames and this is my partner, Detective Goren. You called us in on this?"

"I certainly did! That flatfoot says my boy killed himself."

Eames glanced at Goren, meeting his eyes for a second. "We'll take a look," she said.

"But we'll need you to stay out here while we do," Goren added.

Daughtry pointed at the ground. "I'll wait right here."

The two detectives entered the motel room. There was a trail of clothing leading from the door to the bed. Two black boots, hastily kicked off, a pair of patent leather pants with one leg turned inside out, something made of fishnet, maybe a shirt. A wallet lay at the foot of the bed, and as Eames stooped to pick it up, Goren sought the body of their victim.

He edged through the bathroom door. It was small, musty, and as he caught the incongruous aroma of patchouli, his eyes found a candle on the back of the toilet. The dark red wax had melted to the base, dripped to the floor on one side. The shower curtain was pulled to the wall, revealing the body slumped in the bathtub. Goren felt a muscle in his face twitch as he looked at it. So young. The kid couldn't have been more than sixteen, his youth even more apparent in the pallor of his skin. Dyed black hair was plastered to his forehead, still wet, and the smudged hint of black makeup outlined the staring brown eyes.

The boy's right knee was drawn up, hiding his right arm, but the left arm was draped across his thigh, and water still coated the gaping edges of the vicious wound. His arm was sliced open from the base of his wrist almost to his elbow, his life's blood having disappeared down a dirty motel drain.

Eames slipped into the small room and stood behind her partner as he dropped to one knee beside the tub. "He's just a kid," she muttered. "Sixteen."

Goren nodded as he examined the wound in the boy's left arm. Reaching across the body, he gently pulled the right arm free, finding a similar wound opening that arm. "What a waste," he murmured.

Leaning closer to examine the wound over his shoulder, Eames muttered, "They called Major Case on a suicide? We don't have enough to do?"

Goren shrugged. "His father has pull," he replied, taking care to examine the rest of the body thoroughly. He found nothing else. Standing, he looked around the tiny bathroom. With a puzzled frown, he twisted and turned, looking at the floor, ducking down to look under the toilet, opening the lid to peer inside.

"Lose something?" Eames asked.

"Uh...a razor, a knife, a piece of glass...he cut himself open with something. Where did it go?"

She poked her head out the door, looking around at the dirty, olive green carpet. "Nothing out here."

His brow furrowed and Goren rubbed the back of his neck.

He passed Eames and went to the door, noting that, true to his word, the boy's father had not moved. The other detective, however, was no where to be seen. "Well?" Daughtry asked.

Walking past him without replying, Goren approached a woman sitting in a folding chair nearby, her face ashen and her eyes distant. Tipping his head to better see her face, he asked softly, "You, uh, you found the body?"

The woman's eyelids fluttered, and she tilted her head up toward Goren. She swallowed, and nodded, and her eyes filled with tears.

"Was there...anything else that you saw? Before you saw the body...did you move anything?"

She shook her head emphatically. "I saw it. When I opened the door." She shifted in the chair, wrapped her arms around herself. "I knocked but no one... I'm supposed to have rooms clean by eleven. But when I opened the door it... he was... just there. The bathroom door was open. The curtain was open." She choked and swallowed, scrubbing at her eyes with the back of one hand. "The water was on. It was just... running."

Goren's eyes remained on her face for a moment, then he nodded and straightened. Looking at Eames, it was plain that he felt something was amiss.

Stepping away from the maid, he leaned his head closer to his partner's. "We should have CSU come in and go over the room."

"What are you thinking?"

"Something isn't right. Whatever he used to slice open his arms did not walk off on its own. If he cut his own arms open, where is the blade?"

Daughtry approached them then, not to be put off any longer. "Detectives? What did you find?"

"Honestly," Goren told him shortly, "We didn't find anything."

He looked from the boy's father to his partner, then moved past the man and went back into the motel room, pulling his phone from his pocket as he moved.

Daughtry looked at Eames. "My son did not kill himself. I will not accept that scenario."

"We have to go with what the evidence tells us, Mr. Daughtry."

"I want an autopsy."

She nodded. "That's your right. We'll make arrangements for Jesse to be taken to the medical examiner."

Eames held the man's gaze for a moment, and wondered if he had expected her to argue. She recognized him now that she'd gotten a good look at him. Michael J. Daughtry. He was an assistant district attorney, running for the district attorney's office. She felt a pang of irritation, imagining that she and her partner were here for spin purposes, for a political candidate afraid of having a child's suicide on his record. But as he stared back at her, lips drawn in a thin line, eyes round and shocked, Eames saw his grief.

She reached up and found herself patting his upper arm. Trying to smile. "We'll get to the bottom of this, ok?" Before he could respond, she slipped past him into the room, seeking her partner.

He was standing to the right of the bed, gloves on, holding an empty wine glass by its stem. He didn't turn as she approached him, and Eames saw what he was looking at. There was another wine glass on the bedside table.

He glanced at his partner, then turned his eyes on the bed, where the sheets had been pulled mostly from the mattress, the comforter crumpled at the bottom. Twirling the wine glass slowly between his fingers, he said softly: "I don't think he came here to die."