Title: Whatever Happened: It's Never Too Late
Spoilers: None
Rating: R for naughty language
Summary: Set ten years in the future, Tim Drake(Robin), Cassandra Sandsmark (Wondergirl) and Kon-El (Superboy), have grown up and moved on.
When they meet again, they become embroiled in Tim's personal hell.
Author's notes: This came to me in the middle of Facades, and when a writer's bloc set itself so firmly in Facades, I had this to get me moving. Updates to Facades should be up within the week…hopefully ::crosses fingers::
**
The phone is ringing when I get home. I shuck my coat to the floor, and let myself fall on the couch. The leather creaks under my back. I'm sore, I'm tired, I'm an emotional fuckwit as a friend in the UK so eloquently put the compost pile my emotions were becoming.
I'm not going to pick the damn thing up.
I refuse to.
It keeps ringing.
Is my answering machine on? I look up, over the armrest of the couch. The red light blinks slowly in the dark.
It's on, back to sleep.
The answering machine picks up. A short, monotone voice asks the caller to leave a message.
"Agent Drake…" The man's voice is low, I recognize it almost instantly that its Anderson's. He takes a deep breath, and then lets it out, as if through puckered lips.
The line clicks off.
No.
**
I was able to get to my car in less than two seconds, the New York branch of the FBI in less than five.
No. This can't be happening,
it can't, oh god, it can't…
Anderson is waiting for me when I get there. He's my senior by at least 30 years. Salt and pepper hair frames a strong, creased face. He's sitting in my seat, his feet tucked under the desk, a file held tightly in his hands.
I close the door behind me; my hands are shaking as I stand there. I could barely drive over here, and now I can barely stand still.
"Please tell me this is a joke…" He shakes his head.
I want to scream, but whisper painfully instead, "Please tell me you're fucking joking."
He tosses me a file, and it skitters onto the desk.
I know this file.
I know every fucking word in it.
I hated this file.
I hated everything in it, the pictures, the words, the paper it was all printed on.
It was a nightmare, one that I had thought I had gotten over.
I dream about the pictures still. I sit up in the middle of the night, and my throat is an open sore from screaming. Plaster litters the bed from the old woman upstairs banging the floor with her cane, trying to tell me to shut up.
I'm shaking my head, "Not the same guy. It can't be." Anderson just looks at me from under lowered lids.
My hand is shaking, the file trembles under my hands, "He's dead!" I'm shouting now, banging my fist against the wall besides the door, "I killed him!"
I lean my head against the wall, "I shot him twice….he's dead…" I'm whispering now, the words can barely leave my lips, "He has to be."
**
It was my first year in the FBI as an active agent. I had managed to write two correct profiles that led to the capture of both of the killers. Someone had seen something in me, and I found myself at VICAP in my 10th active month.
I was 23, the second youngest profiler to work in VICAP, second only to an Agent Mulder. I never met the guy, but I heard he was 22 when he found himself in VICAP.
It was my first real case. Second day on the job, and I already found myself deep in shit. A file landed on my desk, tossed there by Anderson. No one else would touch it, they turned green at the mention of it.
We called it the Torso file, simply, because we couldn't think of any other name that didn't make us throw up.
22 women. 4 others still in question.
Torsos only.
Bodies with arms and legs hacked off, only identified by the single finger found in a zip lock bag besides each body. At least that was what we thought. The killings had started 26 weeks ago, an average of one body per week, from the surrounding New York metropolitan area.
Mulder wasn't available.
I was.
I took it, thinking I could do some good.
But what was supposed to take a few days spiraled into weeks. Four women died because I wasn't fast enough.
The tapes had begun to appear at my doorstep after the first week.
Screaming. Pleas. Crying, oh god, the crying. Others shouted obscenities, and the tapes, that held silence, rather than words where the worst.
A total of 25 would appear on my doorstop.
They would come almost everyday. I played them over and over and over again until I heard them in my dreams, when -if- I slept.
I wouldn't let anyone into my apartment because the floors and walls were covered in pictures no one should have had to seen. The fridge was empty because I couldn't eat, and if I did, I would throw it back up. I lost ten pounds over those weeks. Best diet plan available, should have been marketed by Jenny Craig.
I managed to get Babs to send me some painkillers. But after the second week she stopped sending them realizing that I might become addicted. It was already too late. I could still hack. They came to the doorstep along with the tapes.
Those weeks were hell.
The profile came around slowly. On top of the standard white male in his late thirties, early forties, we had nothing. All of his victims were different, other than that they were all female, and all between the ages of 14- 40. He was picky, but most serial killers were.
The type of victim he chose was telling: women, he was angry with his mother, and/or lustful for his sister, maybe both. He may have had a sexual disorder, but the presence of semen proved other wise. He definitely displayed psychosexual tendencies, which was leading us to think that he was either unattractive or in a bad marriage.
That was it.
Nothing else.
Then four weeks into my stint as the profiler, on one of the bodies, forensic scientists discovered an oddly shaped welt on the upper left side of one of the victim's elbow. It formed part of the crest of Gotham University. College ring, it was determined.
They even found out the year of graduation.
Through this and other evidence the pools of suspects was lowered considerably, down to five.
It looked like we had broken the case. We had bugs installed, and guys around the clock checking their movements.
Emily Tourney disappeared from PS2, a high school in the New York suburbs, Monday morning.
None of the five suspects ever went near. The profile was thrown out the window. When I cam home Monday night, the tape was on the mat.
I had picked it up, looked around me, wondered how long it had sat there.
Understanding dawned, right there on my doormat, dripping wet from New York rain.
He had known where I had lived.
Fuck.
I never bothered going inside my apartment that night. I spun on my heel and ran to the car. It took less then five minutes to get to the office, a ride that normally takes ten. I think I ran at least five stoplights that night.
When I reached my office, I didn't bother putting the tape in the worn tape player. My computer, while senile and dusty, was always on. I typed in the information I had.
White.
Rich.
Gotham University, class of '74.
The list fell down to 20.
I dismissed those without broken homes and scratched those who weren't married.
The guy was married. I knew it; I felt it in my gut.
The list dropped to 5.
I struck the ones that didn't have children.
I was down to two.
My eyes hurt, my head throbbed. Goddamnit, I had to make a fucking choice. Which one felt right? Which one could kill over 25 women?
Robert Bell:
Special agent in charge of the investigation into the deaths of 27 women.
Fuck.
I ran five flights of stairs, did a few Robin moves to cover the last three. I was knocking on Anderson's door ten minutes after my arrival to the office.
He opened the door, his face was haggard, but he was as put together as he always was. He motioned me to come in. I threw the print out on his desk.
We had a squad five minutes later.
We were at his house in three.
There I stood, uncomfortable in the Kevlar that felt natural as a kid. It was tight between my shoulders, and too small, FBI competence.
I felt the 20 snipers we had situated around the place, their laser sights drilling a hole into my head.
I knocked.
It was a loud hollow sound that reverberated through the heavy oak door. The missus was in California for a wedding, the kids were tagging along with her.
I knocked again. Nothing. My shaky hand found the knob and I turned.
It was open.
My hand traveled against the wall, the other one holding the gun down to the floor. I felt the eyes of the smiling faces that lined the wall of the hallway. My breath came out in short gasps.
I didn't want to find out.
I didn't want to know how the nightmare would end.
I remember my feet echoing down
the hall, how the light from the opened door to the basement glowed a dull
yellow.
I had lived in this man's head for too long.
I didn't want to meet myself.
Someone screamed. Before I could move, before I could draw in another breath, the SWAT team was all around me. I pushed and shoved my way through them, reaching the bottom of the stairs. I was the first one in, and the first one out, throwing up outside, one hand against the house the other one shaking so badly I had to steady it against my thigh. The SWAT team was tearing up the house. I was throwing up outside of it, my chest heaving, and my forehead sweaty.
Robert Bell, special agent in charge of this operation, burst from the bushes.
It took me a few moments to realize what was going on.
My feet began to move before I told them to. I ran after him, jumping up the side of the building, pulling an old Robin move or two as I leaped the rooftops. I jumped from an overhead of a small apartment and landed heavily against him, pushing the bastard against the gravel.
The bastard grinned, reminding me of the Joker, before he stabbed me in the gut with a knife.
Blood dribbled down my chin, dripping against his face, and I held him against the ground. It was all I could do: hold him down or die. He slammed a rock against the back of my head, and pushed me limply aside.
Title: Whatever Happened: Too Long and Too Late
Spoilers: None
Rating: R for naughty language
Summary: Set ten years in the future, Tim Drake(Robin), Cassandra Sandsmark (Wondergirl) and Kon-El (Superboy), have grown up and moved on.
When they
Author's notes: This came to me in the middle of Facades, and when a writer's bloc set itself so firmly in Facades, I had this to get me moving. Updates to Facades should be up within the week…hopefully ::crosses fingers::
**
before
**
"I'm not going to hurt her like you did."
And I leave.
I hear a soft thump. It's his body sliding against the side of the wall, as he slowly sits down, legs pulled up, and his head in his hands. His shoulders shake.
The elevator opens and I limp painfully on. As the doors close Kon wipes his face.
I was wrong about one thing though.
He loved her.
The bastard still does.
**
now
**
I remember my face against the gravel, hot breath in the cold air, coming out in short gasps. The blood was pooling around my face, stinging hot against my skin. My fingers were numb, my legs dead weight. I couldn't let him get away.
I remember my fingers; slick from sweat and blood; fumbling with the gun I had sworn myself I never would use.
I wanted to kill him. I had lived in his head for too long.
It was a joke. Bored to tears with his job, angry at his wife, sick with his kids, he needed excitement. Nothing interesting was coming in, same old Hannibal Lector wannabees and school shootings. So he decided to do something about it. He killed and killed, and killed. He was bored, and it was fun. It was fun to read his work in the newspaper, to have people fear him.
It was fun to fuck with people's minds, to be on both sides of the investigation. The deeper I had dug into his mind, the quicker I wanted to get out. I had become so engrossed with this guy that by the second week I had begun to rationalize his actions, to dilute his motives.
I had begun to understand him
And I wanted to kill myself.
He pushed a knife to my throat. Blood dribbled down my Adam's apple as he dug deeper, cutting through skin.
Clammy fingers grasped the handle. Shaking hands brought it up. The knife pressing harder, began to drag across my throat.
Shaking hands pressed the muzzle to his stomach, shaking fingers pressed the trigger.
Again.
And again.
His eyes bulged; the knife became loose in his fingers, tumbling to the ground. He clutched his stomach, blood dribbling over, slick against my hands, mixing with my own. My hand fell down again, strength sapped.
When I woke up, Anderson was at my bedside. He nursed a cup of coffee while he stood there.
"You were malnourished." He told me.
My throat was parched, I felt tired, sick, dirty, dead.
"We couldn't find his body."
I wanted to scream, but all I could manage was to close my eyes, "I shot him twice."
Anderson nodded, "We found two pints of blood, he's dead, wherever he is."
I shook my head weakly.
Anderson sighed, patting my shoulder as he turned to leave, "No one survives that son."
I wanted to laugh if I didn't want to throw up more. Yes they do, Anderson, nightmares don't die.
That was three years ago.
I had convinced my self that he was dead, he had to be, I had to believe that.
Until they come back and kill the ones you love.
**