A/N: This story is an AU and a sequel to my story Aberrations. Please read that story first or else none of this will make any sense.
A/N2: ~"Song Lyrics"~ /Signed Dialogue/
Pairings: Established Gil/Sara relationship. Gil/Heather (friendship)
Warnings: Mature T. AU, violence, murder, adult situations, mentions of child abuse/sexual abuse, drug usage, mentions of cutting and suicidal thoughts, mentions of rape, and language.
Summary: "I became so consumed by it that whenever I closed my eyes I could see the chess pieces moving all around the board. I was obsessed with correcting all my bad moves. I wondered if a game could ever be played without a mistake." - Gil Grissom.
Mike Keppler about Gil Grissom - "Meticulous. Obsessive….Fits the profile. Bugs in bottles, the Darwin desk set…(After being told Grissom was a collector of certain things)...I knew a guy in Philly like that. Kept a case of thumbs in a closet. Serial killer."
Prologue: Forever Dead and Lovely
~"She was a middle class girl
She was in over her head
She thought she could stand up in the deep end—"~
In 1969, Gil Grissom was thirteen years old. As he stood on a boardwalk in Santa Monica, California taking pictures of flying seagulls, the dead fish and birds along the shoreline, and the teenagers sitting on the dock whom he never approached, sixteen miles away in Los Angeles a nine-year-old kid by the name of Warner Thorpe sat in his backyard.
He stared at the tool shed across the yard in front of him, the fence around the yard, and the neighbor's houses. No one looked outside. A curtain moved, eyes peered out, but then were gone. In his hands was a cat.
His cat. Socks; due to the white paws on the black cat.
~"He had a bullet proof smile
He had money to burn
She thought she had the moon in her pocket—"~
As he heard his father's yelling coming from the kitchen, the window being open letting the spring breeze in, his hands tightened around the cat's body; it's neck. His mother's screaming became frantic, harsh and desperate until it gargled into silence.
On the floor in the kitchen, his father strangled his mother to death. And in Warner's hands, he strangled his cat. Staring down at its dead body, he felt nothing for what he'd done. There was no guilt or remorse. In his mind, it hadn't been Socks.
In his mind, it had been his father.
~"But now she's dead
She's so dead
Forever dead and lovely now—"~
His father grabbed a shovel out of the shed and started digging a hole. Grabbing his mother's gardening tools, a hand trowel, he started digging a hole as well; mimicking his father. Once he got a hole big enough for the cat, he buried it. Patting the dirt down over it, packing it into its grave, his father was packing the dirt upon his mother's grave. His father had put her inside the hole, crossed her arms over her chest, and then covered her with the dirt as he watched.
~"I've always been told to remember this…
Don't let a fool kiss you
Never marry for love—"~
His father's abuse only got worse after that day. Every day he would beat him; tell him who pathetic he was, useless, and a mistake. At night he dreamed of killing; his hands strangling his father. He wanted to strangle him to death just like he'd strangled his mother.
Then, one night, his father brought home another woman.
~"He was hard to impress
He knew everyone's secrets
He wore her on his arm just like jewelry—"~
He could hear them through the walls of the house. The sex and then the yelling. The beatings. The way he treated her was the way he'd treated his mother. She was like a dog. He used her, beat her, and made her do whatever he told her to do and when to do it. If she talked back, he hit her. Degraded her. She became nothing but a pet to him.
They would drink. His father would hit him and then she would laugh. Laugh at him while she was the only being led around like a dog.
That infuriated him. The bitch. A bitch was a female dog. And that was all she was.
He killed dogs.
~"He never gave but he got
He kept her on a leash
He's not the kind of wheel you fall asleep at—"~
As his father and the woman slept in bed one night, he took the hand trowel he'd used to bury his cat-and the two neighborhood dogs-and he cut her throat with it while she slept. His father woke up, startled, and knocked him off the bed onto the floor. Scrambling up off the floor, he grabbed the empty whiskey bottle off the nightstand and shattered it over his father's head before shoving the broken glass under his throat.
He wanted to kill him, but he didn't do it. He couldn't as his father grabbed his arm and twisted it around until he dropped the broken bottle and shoved him away.
That night in the moonlight, with the blood still on his face, hands, and clothes, his father made him bury the woman's body next to his mother.
~"But now she's dead
Forever dead
Forever dead and lovely now—"~
As he laid the woman in the grave next to his mother, he crossed her arms over her chest, and then shoveled the dirt into the hole and started burying her while his father watched. Staring up at him as he patted the dirt down into the grave, he saw his eyes. The twitch on his face. The whiskey bottle in his hand. The fear in his eyes.
He wasn't useless anymore.
~"Come closer, look deeper
You've fallen fast
Just like a plane on a stormy sea—"~
Sitting on a bench in Hollywood, a block from where the buses dropped off all the movie star hopefuls from Nebraska or further east, or south. They came from all over with dreams of being stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She told him her name was Scarlett Monroe, like Scarlett O'Hara and Marylin Monroe.
~"She made up someone to be
She made up somewhere to be from—"~
A runaway from Omaha, Nebraska, but she was going to tell the talent agency that she was from New York. That she'd worked on Broadway. She was only a teenager; a few years older than he was. He told her his dad was a talent agent who had worked with Clark Gable.
Her eyes sparkled with excitement. She had all her hopes and dreams in those eyes.
~"This is one business in the
World where that's no problem at all—"~
He couldn't wait to take it all away from her. Her hopes, her dreams, and her life. Leading her to the diner where his father was waiting, she introduced them. After they talked, she got into their car and as it drove away, he saw the approval in his father's eyes in the rearview mirror.
Getting her home, he was to have his way with her. She was his birthday present. After three days and three nights of Heaven on earth, he sent her to Heaven as she took with her his virginity.
He grabbed the shovel and dug another hole.
~"Everything that is left
They will only plow under
Soon everyone you know will be gone—"~
In 1976, when he was sixteen years old, while Warner's father was away at work, a salesman came to the door. His name was Douglas Haskell and he was selling vacuum cleaners. Douglas was his height, same hair color, and also wore glasses. They had a resemblance, something that even Douglas mentioned as he let him into his house so he could demonstrate the vacuum. As Douglas vacuumed the floor, he went into the kitchen to get a glass of water. He came back with a knife and stabbed him in the back and then in the chest.
Taking his wallet, he saw the ID and that his full name was Douglas Nathan Haskell. He stripped him of his clothes, butchered him in the basement, and then disposed of his body parts by dumping them in garbage cans throughout Los Angeles.
~"And now she's dead
Forever dead
Forever dead and lovely now—"~
In the Los Angeles County coroner's office, twenty-year-old Gil Grissom started receiving found body parts, including a hand, foot, torso, and a head. He snapped photographs of the body parts, the face, and the tool marks on the bone and in the muscle. The stab wounds, one in the back and the other in the chest. He collected evidence from under the fingernails, toenails, and off the body. He made a dental impression, indexed his fingerprints, and sent everything to the crime lab.
Grabbing his personal camera, he took a picture of the face of the man that had been cut up into pieces as he felt his face twitch. Someone had chopped this man up into pieces. It could have been a serial killer, or even if he was the killer's only victim, he wanted to find him. As he dropped the camera to his chest, he felt an urge rise up in his chest and a thunder pounding in his head.
He wanted to find him so that he could kill him.
~"But now she's dead
Forever dead
Forever dead and lovely now—"~
From 1976 onward, Warner would be known as Nathan "Nate" Haskell, traveling salesman. He went from town to town, city to city, from state to state. California into Arizona and then eventually settling in Las Vegas, Nevada. Along the way, he took women away from their families, their homes, their children, and schools, and then after he took from them everything he wanted, he took their life.
~"I've always been told to remember this…
Don't let a kiss fool you
Never marry for love—"~
He bought a cabin near Lake Mead and then went out searching for the perfect woman to christen the sacred ground. He had found Joel Steiner and Tiffany Cohen outside a concert venue. Sitting in the back of the pickup truck, the lovers appeared to be the perfect couple. She was hanging off his arm, laughing, as Joel smoked the joint that he'd handed him. Joel passed the joint to Tiffany, and she took a puff off it and blew out the smoke.
He watched as it swirled around her and into the air. Ripping him away from her was going to be the fun part. As Joel's eyes started to droop, his body relaxing due to the marijuana that was laced with sage extract, he wrapped his arms around his neck and strangled him. Neither of them could fight back as the drug took full effect, incapacitating them.
~"Everything has its price
Everything has its place—"~
Taking her to his cabin, he had his way with her in every way he wanted. He tortured her, raped her, and gave her hope. Through it all, he always gave them hope. He wouldn't kill them if they did as he said. "Do as you're told, and I'll let you go."
As the night sky fell upon them, the moonlight shining down through the window into the cabin, he ended her life by running a hand saw across her neck. Prying up the floorboards, he placed her body down into the hole he'd already dug and then crossed her arms over her chest and buried her.
Placing the floorboard back in place, he went outside and stood in the moonlight as he looked at the blood on his hands. He washed it off in the lake.
~"What's more romantic
Then dying in the moonlight?—"
Fifteen bodies laid under the cabin when he was caught at a sobriety checkpoint. The police saw his hands, the blood that the lake didn't fully wash away, and then they checked his trunk. In it they found his sixteenth victim.
They called him the "Dick & Jane Killer" because he killed couples. He didn't just kill couples; he took them away from each other. He ripped them apart, tore their lives to pieces, and then buried it all in the ground. Forever alone. Forever belonging to only him. They were his.
Life at the Maximum-Security Prison in Ely, Nevada. They put him in solitary confinement. His food was pushed through a slot in the door and his guard never talked to him. It lasted that way for years. Eleven years with no one to talk to except for his "fans". Women who wanted to marry him. Women he wanted to torture and rape and kill were the same ones who wanted to be his wife. They were nothing to him but dogs. Little bitches.
He would string them along until they proved themself useful. Then he would use them and then kill them.
~"Now they're all watching the sea
What's lost can never be broken—"~
Then, one day, another prisoner wanted to talk to him. He started receiving notes. And he started answering them. It was gratifying, being able to share in the thrill of killing with someone else who was very much like himself. They both had started killing at a young age due to the death of a parent. He had lied and told Langston that his father had died, when in truth it had been his mother. He had wanted it to be his father. He hated his father.
He had Thomas Donover out there killing for him, but he couldn't get satisfaction from it due to being cut off from the outside world. The only gratification he received now were from the notes that were passed back-and-forth. And the drawings of the dead.
They built a rapport as he told him about his life, the people he'd killed, and how he'd killed them. His pen-pal told him of his killings, the how, along with the drawings. A kindred spirit.
Sending serial killer Gil Grissom a note back, he waited for the return reply.
~"Her roots were sweet
But they were so shallow—"~
Opening the letter from Grissom, he read:
"Do you play chess? I play. It's a hobby. Quiets my mind, you know? Soothes me. At one point I became so consumed by it, that whenever I closed my eyes I could see the chess pieces moving all around the board. I was obsessed with correcting all my bad moves. I wondered if a game could ever be played without a mistake. I'd love to play you."
He flipped the paper over and saw a chess board drawn on the back of it. All the pieces were set up in their places, except for one white pawn that had been drawn to illustrate the first move.
He smirked as he grabbed a piece of paper, wrote a return note, and then drew another chess board on the back. It resembled the board almost completely except for one change; his first move with a black pawn to E5; directly in front of Grissom's white pawn on E4.
The fact that Grissom had chosen the white pieces, the "good" side and gave him the black pieces, the "dark" side wasn't lost on him. Langston had made that distinction for them. One was good, the other evil. Little did Langston know that they were both evil.
They were both killers.
~"And now she's dead
Forever dead
Forever dead and lovely now—"~
A day later he received a new note with the chess board on the back. Grissom had moved his white knight to F3. Countering his move, he moved his black Knight to C6. Handing the sheet of paper to his guard a day later, he was surprised when he didn't take it.
The guard looked in at him as he told him, "Haven't you heard, Haskell? Grissom escaped."
Haskell nearly gapped in shock but held it in as he returned to his bed and stared at the wall. Grissom had escaped. He felt the rage ignite inside as he stared down at the piece of paper with the chess board in his hand. He wanted to play him; he wanted to beat him.
Grissom thought he was so much smarter than he was by escaping; having figured out a way to do it in just a few months. He'd been there for eleven years. The rage ignited as he ripped the paper to pieces, tossed everything off his desk as he screamed. Grabbing his bedsheets, he started ripping them to shreds as the door opened. He was shocked and wrestled to the floor.
As he was restrained, struggling against the guards, he knew this wasn't over. He would find a way to finish their game.
~"And now she's dead
Forever dead—"~
He would get out. And once he was free, he would find Grissom, his Queen, and take her away from him. He would make her his.
Forever.
~"And she's so dead and lovely now."~
TBC…
Disclaimer Song used: "Dead and Lovely" by Tom Waits.