AN: This is my first CSI fic and I decided to try both an angst fic with a case-file in the
background. I've been doing research, so I hope to get some facts right. But I would like say
again that this is the first CSI one. But I love this show so much, that I couldn't resist. :)
Disclaimer: I don't own CSI. If I did, then obviously Greg would be a CSI now. Titles taken
from the wonderful band In Flames.
Warnings: Thoughts of suicide and cutting.
Title: Dancing All Alone
Part 1: You live in a dream world.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I dream about how it's going to end.
I've always prided myself in living life with an edge; with a bit of twist and flare that makes
people turn their gaze to me, so it would be only natural that I go out with the same flare.
I work with death, so I've seen the different methods people have chosen to end their lives with.
The most interesting version being with a grocery bag and liberally applied duct tape. I saw only
the crime-scene photos but the person finding that one must still be in therapy. In a cold way,
that's the kind of response I want people to have after finding the body.
Funny, how I think of myself as 'the body' after death. That's all human life is reduced to in the
end. I know, I've seen it.
Actually, I guess I flatter myself by saying that I've seen it. All I've really seen is a few precious
moments in the field, never the first to arrive; merely an afterthought for a set of extra hands. I
just see the mixtures and compounds that make up fluids and fibers, skin cells and DNA tags,
never the real action. I'm just making educated guesses at what it would be like, I guess.
But as I sit here at this desk, piled high with evidence and results, I can't help but to remind
myself that making educated guesses are just another aspect of a scientist, and flattering myself I
may be with attributing knowledge with CSI level work, I know that I really am a scientist.
These hulking, cold machines that cage me in are physical proof of that.
Am I living in a dream world?
Tap. Tap. Tap. I have more evidence to process yet here I am just taping my pencil against the
desk; the wood keeping a rhythm that none of my music could ever demean itself to. Something
so tame and organized, a rhythm that just isn't me.
There is a little transparent baggy in front of me containing a pencil, not much different than
mine, except the difference was that the eraser was chewed. Now who doesn't chew their eraser
at some point? That's what Warrick and Catherine are ridding on and that their perp's DNA
could resided on some shredded lump of rubber glued to the end of a lead filled stick.
It's my job to run the tests.
My machines in my lab find the killers, and they get to put him or her away and take the credit
and the glory of knowing that they saved just a little bit more of the most sinful city in the world.
I just sit in my dream world of machines and tests.
I've fought this feeling of apathy before. Well, now that's not quite the truth, it wasn't really
apathy, now was it? Doctors had a ready made name for it: clinical depression. They have such
neat little packages ready for you when you are diagnosed, pamphlets and monochromatic
cartoons. Excuses telling me that I felt the way I did because of pressure, because school was
getting to me and the idea of college beyond my small teenaged realm was cracking down on me
and my mind couldn't handle it all. So it began to break down, darkness crawled in and took up
residence.
But everyone and their dog was depressed back then. Now too. So I really don't know.
Now here I am staring at my pencil, and the one in the bag.
Bag.
Which brings us full tilt around back to ending one's life with a simple grocery bag. I may sound
slightly arrogant, but I don't really want to go out with the words "Thriftway" upside down over
my head.
Which leaves me here, dreaming how it is going to end.
In a way though, I don't want to have a hand in my own death. There is a part of me that wants
to feel alive. Half alive at least.
I look down at my hands holding the pencil and I can barely hold a cynical laugh in. Gloves
cover my hands down to the wrists in order to prevent contamination of the evidence. Evidence
that others gathered for me to analyze.
I'm not bitter.
I'm stereotypical.
If you look past those gloves, underneath the crazy print shirt and lab coat, you'd see the old
scars that use to be my method of coping with the doctor-issued "clinical depression". The lines
would fade into my natural skin tone only to flare back out to that cold ash gray of scar tissues a
bit further down. Some were thin, others were wide. It really depended on what angle I held the
razor. Contrary to what some believe, thick cuts could be made by simple razor blades, no
'Xacto knifes are needed. Swiping it cleanly across your forearm or under arm made the thin
lines, that took a few seconds to bead up blood; while it was the thick ones that took a second for
the skin to process that it has been sliced open before the blood some welling up, for those, the
blade had to be angled toward your body, almost at a 30 degree angle.
How very stereotypical of me.
I went through high school as the geek who cut. Not a reputation I am very proud of. I was
foolish to wear my scars on the outside, daring someone to ask about them. Like you see on
those made-for-TV movies, filled with the angst, there is always someone to help the depressed
teen out of their destructive ways.
No one saw me. No one asked. I kept in my razor's company.
Then one day the fog lifted and I began to wake up for the day. It was over and I returned to my
life again. No drugs did that for me. I just managed to rescue myself.
I should have known that if it had left so easily, then it could just as easily return.
Funny, I just thought that it would have come back after the lab exploded, not several months
later.
The razor has suddenly moved into place next to my bed.
Only I am not foolish enough to continue slicing my arms. Well, sometimes, on really bad days,
I allow a quick slash, only one though, just daring one of my co-workers to find out.
Though I don't know what they would do if they did.
The majority of the cuts take up my calves and thighs. No one thinks to check there. Hell they
don't even check the obvious stops either. That's why I've been splurging lately and have at
least three deep cuts on my arms today. All 30 degrees too.
My legs are worst. I keep them an inch away from the desk as I tap my pencil in what appears to
be boredom. If I were to jar them against anything, I'd probably fall over in pain and shock. But
I don't look at them. I don't allow myself to see the marks until the end of the shift, when I am
back at home and changing for bed. Only then.
It has become like a treat to see the bruising around the cuts. I love the radial contusions that the
razor makes.
Would a pencil be able to make a cut the same way? I look at the pointed end and realize that not
only would it make a terrible cutting device, but I should have been running tests on that pencil
hours ago. Warrick or Catherine, or Grissom for that matter could be charging in here any
minute, looking for their results.
And I have none to show.
I've been living in a dream world.
Pressing the tip of my pencil against one of the scabbed 30 and exert a slight bit of force, letting
the led dig in slightly.
"Greg," Catherine, oh god, the pencil slipped and caught underneath the scab and jerked it.
"Have those results on the eraser test for me?"
Ignoring the slight bit of pain, I realized that it is either time to fess up that I've been spacing or
come up with a convincing lie. "Sorry Cath, the results have been backlogged." Yes, going with
the busy excuse. I know that it is at least partially the truth.
She is looking at me with those eyes that can seem to sense the lie. She is good at that. She can
see pass the layers of bullshit that people build around themselves; she can even seem to see past
Grissom's and his shit is thicker than anyone's I've ever known.
"You alright, Greggo?" Nickname, trying to innocently worm her way into my mind. Not
working.
Flashing her my brightest smile, I try to sooth her worries. "Yeah Cath, believe it or not, Ecklie
has pushed some of his days' stuff on me, calling it priority and in turn pushing yours to the
bottom."
"Then why is it in front of you?"
Shit. I forgot that I was looking at it. "Just looking at it. I figured, I'd run some days, then run
yours as a special favor." flashing that winning grin again.
It seemed to work this time. She gave me a return smile and nodded ever so slightly. "Thank
Greg..." she trailed off and stared hard at me. "Greg are you bleeding?"
That statement shocked me. Looking down, I could see where my pencil had reopened one of my
cuts and now it was sluggishly dripping down my latex glove.
Red on white.
For all my inner feelings of wanting to be caught the initial thought was to make more excuses.
My fluent mouth stumbled as I met Catherine's eyes.
I was caught off guard.
I was living in a dream world.