Pandora's Box
A/N: I just recently saw the movie "Se7en" for the first time in full, and there were a lot of little things that didn't make sense to me that I thought Somerset should've been asking about. That, coupled with the fact that, while we all know the ending in the movie is the only ending that was ever intended to be made, it's an ending that I think you can respect why they had to do it that way, but you still wish they'd gone another route, at least I did. So here is a VERY alternative ending that may not necessarily be a happy ending, but I think it'll be more satisfying than the canon ending was. Hope you enjoy! Please read and review.
It hadn't exactly been a quiet drive out to where John Doe offered to show them the bodies of his two other victims. He and Mills had been going back and forth for a while and a couple of times, Somerset was honestly surprised Mills hadn't said 'to hell with everything' and just shot John Doe through the partition separating them. He knew he himself had been sorely tempted to, but aside from the fact that they were wired and there was no way anybody listening would ever buy it as justifiable, he was simply too old and versed in homicide for that. The important thing was finding these two other victims, get the confession, close the case, close seven cases.
What a hell of a way to end his career in the police force, as a homicide lieutenant. A serial killer who picked completely random victims based on the 7 deadly sins. It was the stuff thriller fiction was made of. But that would be a glossed over, romanticized version of it. No matter how many gory details the writers loved to throw in for shock value, they always wound up romanticizing shit like this, otherwise people wouldn't read it. There was a reason only a small percent of any populace were actual homicide cops and everybody else were just the everyday people who only interacted with homicide cops when they had to, which thank God for them was damn rare. Most of them, good or bad, couldn't deal with half the shit they saw on a regular basis. He had it pegged that half of any population couldn't stand working in homicide for 6 months, and only about 45% of that other half could even stick it out the first year, let alone the year after that...or the year after that...or the year after that. Yeah, he was definitely getting out in the nick of time, before he dwelt too long on the fact how many years he'd been doing this shit and somehow had managed not to eat his gun yet. He knew the men he worked with were competent at what they did, none of them really put in the extra amount of effort he did, that was okay, that was his thing, if everybody else thought the same way, his role would suddenly become a tad more obsolete.
Maybe that was why he'd hung on so long, besides the fact he really didn't have anything else. Not like Mills, a young beautiful loving wife, a baby on the way. So what if their home turned into the San Andreas fault every time the C train went by? In his old cynical eyes, Mills had everything anybody could ever want or need in life to be happy. No, Somerset had his work, which he excelled at because he asked the questions nobody else thought of, that drove everybody else around him nuts, he went the extra mile to make sure what they were dealing with in a case, and for over 20 years, he'd convinced himself that that was enough. It had to be after he and his girlfriend had broken up, after she got rid of the baby. He'd never tried to spark another relationship after that because he knew no matter what happened, he would be gauging every possible aspect of it through the eyes of his work, and there wasn't a woman alive who could or would or even should have to put up with that kind of attitude day in and day out from their boyfriend, their husband, their life partner.
He thought again about Mills' wife, so young, so beautiful, so loving, trying to do right by her husband, but already becoming frustrated with this brand new world they'd been plunged into. If Mills stuck it out in homicide as long as he had, Somerset had no doubt he would too in time become just as hardened and cynical and apathetic to the whole world, as he was. And then what? Could their marriage survive that? He wasn't sure if anybody's could.
It was just now that it really hit Somerset that this was the first day all week that it wasn't raining, the sun was actually out, the sky was clear, it was an otherwise beautiful sight in an otherwise shitty environment. The city didn't look this pleasant. All the sunshine and blue sky in the world couldn't undo all the shit that the city had become. If there were houses out here...this would be the place for Mills and his wife to have their kid and raise it. An atmosphere like this could almost give you hope.
Hope however, seemed to quickly diminish any time John Doe opened his mouth again and started talking about the scourge of humanity, seeming to be completely oblivious to the fact that he was #1 on that list of miserable sons of bitches who didn't deserve to see the light of day.
Their dynamic was very simple, Mills was the hothead bad cop, he was the calm cool and collective older good cop, he moderated, he kept the peace, he asked the safe questions that didn't give John Doe much pleasure to answer, because he knew he couldn't rile Somerset up.
Something very small clicked in Somerset's head as he drove along. And he suddenly felt like a wall came crashing down on him, wondering why this hadn't occurred to him before. Him, who asked all the questions that didn't matter to anybody else. Did the 6 year old see his mom blow his dad's brains out? Somehow that wasn't important, just cuffing the crazy bitch and taking her in to get a confession and locking her up was. Him, who looked at everything so far out of the box it might as well be an entirely different zip code. And he hadn't thought to question this, until right this moment.
"John," he interfered in the current verbal sparring match between Mills and Doe. "There's one thing I'm having trouble understanding."
The man in the back of the police car was quiet for a second, before replying in a tone of low key sarcasm, "Only one thing, Lieutenant Somerset? You're being too kind on yourself."
Somerset met his gaze in the rear view mirror through the partition. Keeping his eyes on the killer's reflection, the older cop said to him, "Tell me about the Lust killing."
Mills half turned his head and shot him a very confused glance. From the backseat Doe tittered smugly, "It pretty much speaks for itself, don't you think, officer?"
"No, it doesn't," Somerset calmly replied, and for a very brief second, he saw a puzzled look on Doe's face, but he quickly recovered. It didn't matter, Somerset had seen it.
"You've been a very busy man, John," Somerset said. "You've had this plan already in action for over a year, we know this because that's how long you had Victor Allen tied to the bed in that apartment, which you kept the rent up on during that whole time."
"You really think I'd let the rent lapse and let the landlord walk in on that?" John asked.
"No, you're too clever for that."
"Your patronizing will get you nowhere, lieutenant."
"I'm not patronizing," Somerset replied, in a tone that was both unreadable but just a hint smug, "It doesn't only take a genius to plan all this and carry it out, but it takes extreme patience, a quality that most people in this world severely lack."
"Time is one thing I have all I need in this world," John responded.
"Clearly, since this ball has been slowly moving along for more than a year, I can only guess how long you actually spent planning it all out, preparing for it, long before you ever kidnapped Victor Allen," Somerset pointed out. "You had to make sure everything was exact, everything was perfect, you wouldn't take a chance of something going wrong."
"Flattery is not going to get you anywhere, lieutenant."
"I just can't figure out," Somerset ignored his comment, "Why you suddenly screwed up with Lust."
And there. Just a split second, in the rear view mirror. John Doe's eyes lit up in rage, but he blinked it back before he spoke, again in his unreadable, monotonous tone, "I didn't screw up, that disease ridden whore is dead...quite originally, I might add."
"Ehh," Somerset dismissively replied, "you screwed up there...something didn't go according to plan."
"Oh really?"
"Really. Gluttony, Greed, Sloth...those were all very cleverly executed killings...and they all fit together. But this one...something went wrong."
"You seem to be confused, lieutenant," John Doe nonchalantly replied, "because I seem to remember the two of you finding her vaginally mutilated corpse in the basement room of that massage parlor. I'm sure you appreciated the view."
Mills was about to turn around and yell in Doe's face through the partition again, but Somerset cut him off before he started, "You know of course we talked to the guy at Wild Bill's Leather Store."
"I knew you would," he answered with a degree of smugness about him.
"He showed us the photo of that contraption you had him custom make," Somerset said.
"Pales to seeing it in action, doesn't it?"
"Mills," Somerset turned to his young partner, "Didn't that thing look like it could just as easily have fit our guest here...as it did that man in the massage parlor?"
Mills shot him a very confused look like he thought the old man had lost his damn mind.
"Lieutenant, are you hinting at something?" John Doe asked conceitedly.
"You didn't plan this with somebody else, did you, John?" Somerset asked. "There's no partner out there who's going to commit another killing while you're in our custody to 'prove' you're innocent, is there?"
"You know there isn't," he answered.
"Right," Somerset said agreeably, "You pulled this all off yourself. You rented that apartment Allen was kept in, you took him there, you tied him to that bed, you inserted all the tubes in him, cut his hand off, took it to Gould's office, wrote out the words on the wall with his fingers, you went to that fat man's apartment, tied him up, put a gun to his head, put the food in front of him and made him eat for 12 hours until he puked, then made him eat again, hell, you had to go back to the store and restock to try again, because he was just so fat, it took forever to fill his gut to the bursting point. You went to Gould's office, put a gun to his head, made him strip down to his underwear, tied him up, gave him the knife, made him cut off a pound of his own flesh for the scale, made him decide where to do it."
"Is this stroke fest of my abilities going somewhere, lieutenant?" John Doe dryly inquired.
It was obvious from the look in Mill's left eye he was shooting his partner that he was wondering the same thing. But for once, he was doing what he was supposed to and shut up, just sat back and watched the senior cop in action. Smart kid, he'd go well in this department, if he didn't wind up eating his gun or making someone else eat it.
Somerset didn't answer for a few seconds, before point blank asking, "Why didn't you fuck her yourself, John?"
Mills turned his head a fraction of an inch so both eyes were looking towards Somerset now, and it was obvious from the look in them, that the wheels were starting to turn in his own head too. But he didn't have the years of experience with the complete and total depravity of this city, to connect the dots, not just yet.
"You put your gun to the gluttony victim's head, you tied him up, you made him eat himself to death...you put your gun to Gould's head, made him strip and get down on the floor, tied him up, made him cut himself apart. You put your gun to Victor Allen's head, forced him into that apartment, and tell the truth, you made him cut off his own hand, didn't you?"
Mills blinked. Nobody on the case had even bothered to think about who had cut off Sloth's hand. It wasn't relevant to the investigation.
John Doe's only answer was, "It's amazing the things people are willing to do if they think it'll keep them alive."
"Except for Pride," Somerset remarked. "You cut her face up, but she was so vain she'd rather die than live looking like that."
"That was her choice," John said.
"Right," Somerset said. "She chose to take the pills. Gould chose to mutilate himself because he didn't want to get shot. That fat man ate for 12 hours because he didn't want to get shot. But Lust...not only did she not get to make a choice...but for the first time, you couldn't kill her...instead you forced some dumb bastard who just happened to be in the room to do it for you. And I can't help wondering why?"
"It isn't as if he was so innocent either, he was married, he had no business being with a whore," John Doe answered.
"But you didn't kill him," Somerset pointed out. "Why not?"
"Seven victims is all I need, and the other two were already spoken for, I didn't need two dead for Lust," he said.
"Back to the original question, why didn't you fuck her yourself?" Somerset asked. "You're a man who admires his work...I can only imagine how much more satisfying it would've been if you strapped that thing on yourself and actually did it...instead of giving some dumb son of a bitch an ultimatum of kill or be killed...that doesn't fit with the rest of your killings."
"It doesn't have to fit," John said.
"You expect us to believe that?" Somerset asked. "There's a method at work here, and it's been carried out on all the other victims without fail."
"You don't know that," John told him. "You haven't seen the last two victims yet."
"Right," Somerset seemed to concede, "That's why we're going there now."
"Yes...I believe it will be most satisfactory."
"To who?" Mills asked.
"Me," John answered plainly.
"Well ain't you full of yourself?"
"Wrath, and envy, right, John?" Somerset asked.
"That's right."
"What exactly are we going to find out there, John?" Somerset wanted to know. "Envy was envious of Wrath and they killed each other? Or maybe it was a murder suicide? All perfectly executed by you of course."
"You'll find out when we get there," the killer said definitively.
They drove along in silence for a few seconds before Somerset came out of the blue and said nonchalantly to Mills, "I thought the idea behind those things is that's what a guy uses when he can't get it up himself."
"Lieutenant, you are insulting my intelligence by trying to goad me with this," John Doe told him.
"I'm just trying to figure out why you had to get someone else to do your dirty work for the only time in your whole killing spree," the black cop returned. "Everything has a reason, even if we can't see it, there's always one. Wife kills husband, husband kills wife, kids kill parents, parents beat babies to death, 10 year old shoots an 11 year old for his sneakers, somebody gets an arrow to the eye for cheating at Monopoly...doesn't make sense to anybody else, but there's always a reason for the people who do it. So the only reason I can think why you'd have to get somebody else to put on your little toy and rape that woman to death is because you knew you couldn't do it yourself."
"That's supposed to mean something, I'm sure," John Doe inquired.
"Well it could mean a couple different things," Somerset answered. "Either you've never had sex with a woman and wouldn't know how to actually do it yourself, which instantly takes the edge of terror off this whole thing and just becomes pathetic."
Despite the gravity of the conversation, a small snicker ripped through the side of Mills' mouth as he heard this. Somerset glanced at him with an unreadable expression, but returned his attention to the road and continued, "Or, you were just too much of a pussy to actually wear the thing yourself...knowing how inferior your own dick would be in mere size comparison, wouldn't have been able to focus on your work because you'd spend the whole time in deep set penis envy."
As mortified as the rest of Mills' face was, his eyes widened in telltale amusement and a much louder laugh came out as he clapped a hand over his mouth. Somerset couldn't suppress a small smirk of amusement. He was sure the guys listening overhead in the chopper thought he'd done lost his damn mind. Maybe he had.
The echoing clang of the metal partition being hit got both cops' attention as Somerset gazed into the mirror again and saw John Doe had rapped it with both fists, the handcuffs presenting a bit of a challenge for him.
Both cops were suddenly all business again. Feigning innocence, Somerset inquired, "Is there a problem, John?"
In the mirror he saw the killer gritting his teeth through pursed lips. Again, John Doe quickly recovered himself and said, all business himself, "It's right up ahead."