Disclaimer: Hey guess what? I don't own CSI Miami or Ryan. Betcha thats a surprise.
Thanks to the amazing luf100 for betaing this and listening to me whine about my inability to write at 12 am and just be annoying in general. Enjoy!
He's tired of feeling empty. The nothingness is driving him insane. But he knows it has to be this way. It just has to. It won't work otherwise. He'll fall apart and become a shell, a robot, just doing what is necessary to survive. And he pretends that by not caring he won't end up there anyways.
It's the looks he can't take. Every time he walks through the door, rounds a corner or passes someone in the halls. It's pity in their eyes. They're all nameless strangers but they pity him without knowing his name. They pity him because he's a dead man.
Not literally though. He's still very much alive, breath, heart beat and all. But he took a dead man's job without realising what that meant. He didn't think about it because honestly, who would? He's young and when the job opened up he jumped at the opportunity the job presented. And now he's paying the price. He didn't understand that by taking the job he was replacing someone. And his new coworkers resent him for it. He's a dead man because when he walks into the room or makes a break on a case it's not him they are seeing. It's not him they want to see.
So he pretends he doesn't notice it. He pretends, day after day, that he's alright and it's all good and he hasn't noticed the way some of his coworkers glare at him or look at him with a sad expression because they're not really seeing him. He doesn't hear the lab techs whispering and he doesn't notice everyone staring at him like a circus freak. As long as he doesn't do anything or feel anything or be anyone he'll be okay.
It would all be easier if he was invisible; if he could just shrink away and disappear. He feels like a high school kid again, afraid of the jocks and the cheerleaders and the preps and the Goths because he knows they'll judge him and he doesn't want to be judged. It's kind of ridiculous. He'll torture himself emotionally and not because he's masochistic (although he is and he won't deny it) but because he can't give up or give in because he doesn't want to give them the satisfaction of winning. Which is even more ridiculous. He doesn't even know these people and if he were to stand up right now and walk out of the lab and Miami for good he'd probably never see them again.
He's just too afraid to let them know they got to him even if realistically, they probably haven't even noticed it themselves. Really, he has nothing to lose. But instead, for some insane reason that he can't even fathom, he's staying here and letting himself be eaten apart and torn to bits by their gazes and words, all the while pretending not to feel it, just feeling empty instead. It's bizarre and it doesn't make sense and he can't understand it but he just can't let this go. Even if it destroys him. Maybe it already has.
It's a year later and he still doesn't feel like he belongs. He still feels like a dead man, even if the looks and whispers have subsided. He's an outcast and it's blindingly and painfully obvious to EVERYONE around him but he just pretends it's not like that. He's gotten really good at pretending. Sometimes he's not even sure what's real and what's fake anymore. And he doesn't even care. It's easier that way, because, even if he tries to deny it, it's only gotten worse.
After the whole Erica Sykes debacle he became aware that his… situation, if you want to call it that, had changed. Now he wasn't just some poor guy who had a bad break and took the wrong job at the wrong time or some kid who thought he could replace Speedle. This time he was a liability and a stupid kid who had put the department at risk and a million other things he hadn't even thought of, but that people were definitely saying. He'd had a gut feeling not to trust her but she was nice and pretty and even if it was all bullshit, she had pretended to understand. After months of being silent and closed off he had needed something or someone and she just happened to be there. It hadn't helped that she took everything he said out of context and made him look like a bigger ass than he already was.
Now he had to deal with the glares and resentment from his co-workers and "friends" because he had been stupid enough to think that for a moment, someone else cared. Of course they didn't. He should have known better but he didn't. He'd always made these kind of stupid mistakes, jumping into something head first or trusting someone even when his instincts were screaming for him not to. Was it any surprise he was making them now?
He doesn't tell anyone this but when the nail hits him in the eye he is actually somewhat relieved. As horrible and depressing as it is, it made him feel more human than he had in over a year. He was real and he could die. Which at the time, had not seemed like such a bad thing. He was just tired. Of everything. Mainly his big, I'm okay, I'm Ryan Wolfe and nothing can hurt me charade but also he was tired of the little things. Of not having anyone to trust or to confide in, of not being able to laugh and smile without feeling like he was about to be ripped in two. It was taking its toll on him and he could feel himself, his whole personality, slowly being dissolved and disappearing for good.
So maybe dying wouldn't have been such a bad thing after all. At least then he'd be able to break down and give it all up and pour his anger and whatever else that was eating at him out the window. Then again he would be dead. And he highly doubted that anyone, anyone at all, was going to miss him. After all he was just Ryan Wolfe. He wasn't anyone special. And he had a building full of people to remind him of that every single day, whether he liked it or not.
Ironically though, the whole near death experience ended up keeping him going because for once he has hope. Maybe somehow, now that he has… proved himself? They will finally start appreciating him. They will realise he's not Speedle and he doesn't want to be Speedle and Speedle's GONE, but that's okay. They won't look at him with that horrible, pitying, sympathy filled look that just drives him mad every time he sees it on one of their faces. Maybe.
When he realises that all that hope and optimism was just another case of him playing exactly to how they all see him he gives up. He stops caring and he stops trying completely. He goes to work and he doesn't try to block it all out and feel nothing. He feels it and he doesn't care. It doesn't matter anymore. Nothing is going to change for him, not ever. He's just one of those stupid, tragic people who are meant to exist only in movies until one day everything takes a turn and they meet the perfect girl or quit their job and discover who they really are. Except of course, none of that's happening for him. Not now, not ever. And it probably never will. He will keep doing what he's doing and the world will keep spinning and nothing will change because it never, ever does. He's okay with that now.
He starts gambling, just as something to do, something to make him feel alive when it's so painfully obvious he's not. He keeps going until eventually he's in the hole and he realises it might be a problem. He doesn't care though. He's not going to give it up.
No one at work suspects anything of course. And why would they? There he's just the perfect robot. Officer Ryan Wolfe, CSI Level 3. They don't mean anything anymore, his name, his gun, his badge. They are all parts of this character he plays every day from 6-3. And when he goes home he's Ryan Wolfe. Gambler and human being. Or maybe that's who he wants to be. It doesn't really matter anymore. He's too far gone along this road that it never will. He's lost himself and he probably won't find his way back because one day this is all going to come crashing down and kill him. He probably won't live another 10 years. But he doesn't mind.