Lovely reviews - - thank you so, so much.
Also, I have to insert a plug for Janissa11's "Enmity." Good characterization, good Nick-centric casefile, and excellent tension. The suspense is a thing of beauty.
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Chapter Twenty-five: Saint Peter (GREG)
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Greg climbed down the stairs and stood at the bottom of the flight for a long minute with his hands knotted behind his neck, as if he were trying to hold his head on straight. Okay, yeah. Nick was right about one thing - - he should go home. He'd already wrapped up the rest of his cases, and his helpfulness was probably bordering on annoyance right now. He held the railing with one hand, unbalanced, and thought: Grissom would have made me go home hours ago.
Warrick had tried to send him home, but acting supervisor or not, Warrick didn't present the same authority as Grissom did. Warrick didn't make people desperate for his approval and terrified of his dislike - - Warrick was just Warrick, brave and smart, but so tired. So exhausted down to his bones.
I should say goodbye to him, before I go. It's not his fault. He's trying.
He found Warrick in the dark A/V lab. Archie had already left for the night, and Warrick was just sitting in the chair, not operating any of the equipment, not spinning around, not doing anything. Greg was hesitant to approach him, because, for a minute, Warrick actually was Grissom - - still and implacable - - but then Warrick turned and gave him a very weary smile, and Greg could see that Warrick was almost to his limits, if not past them.
He said, nervously, "I was just going to take off."
"Good. That's good," Warrick said. "Nick convince you to leave? Good for him."
So that had been why Nick had found him on the roof - - Nick had come up there with a mission: get Greg to go home. Well, he'd succeeded, but judging by Nick's beaten expression when Greg had passed him to go down the stairs, maybe success was cold comfort.
"Yeah," Greg said. "He really got through to me."
"Sorry to interrupt your martyr scene, Greg, but this isn't all about you."
Warrick didn't say anything, and his eyes looked opaque, as if behind them, there was absolutely nothing else to see or be seen.
Greg said, "Warrick?"
Warrick nodded, blinked, and the closed, empty look was gone. "Yeah. Sorry to zone out on you. Listen, we'll clear this up, okay? We'll be shooting pool again before you know it. Actually, all of us will. You, me, Nick, Sara, Cath - - we'll drag Grissom along, too."
Greg closed his eyes again and saw the black eight ball zoom into his field of vision, rolling into the pocket. Bad luck, they said. His lucky rabbit's foot hadn't stopped the evidence from going missing. When he got home, he was going to toss that worthless piece of trash in the fireplace and light it up. Have a bonfire of his vanities.
"Sounds fun."
"It will be. And don't worry. We're going to solve this."
"I hope you do," Greg said honestly, and in the second he said it, he knew that he believed it. It didn't matter whether or not he lost his job over the missing evidence or not. All that mattered was that they solve the case and fix whatever cataclysmic wrong had set off the last week, and Greg would take his unemployment slip without a whimper.
"Why don't you go home, too?"
Warrick shrugged. "I don't know. I should. Dayshift's going to be arriving in just a few hours, and I don't want them gawking at me. Guess I just feel more useful here, even if I can't really do anything. Maybe something will turn up."
"Okay," Greg said, accepting that, and then granted Warrick the benefit of the doubt with, "You're the boss, man."
Warrick's eyes were a little sharper when he looked at Greg. "Your lip's bleeding."
"I know. I bit it. Thus is the bloodshed that stems from having perfectly even teeth." He pulled his lower lip inwards and licked at it. "I feel like a vampire. Blood tastes nasty, anyway." He sighed, shook his head. "I'll see you in the morning. Cool?"
"Cool," Warrick said, and patted him on the shoulder. "Get some sleep."
"Like to. I'm almost down on my feet here. Night, Warrick."
Warrick nodded at him, and Greg slid out the door, double-checking for Nick in the halls. If he saw Nick now, he might (might) apologize for saying what he said about Nick's white-knight complex. Assuming, of course, that Nick appeared ready to apologize about the martyr complex comment. Forget the Judas thing, Greg wasn't going to and couldn't forgive him for that anytime soon. It didn't really matter if Nick had meant to say it or not, Nick had thought it, and now he had a bleeding lip and a bruise on his cheek, and maybe one person on his side.
Sara believed him because Sara didn't want to accuse anyone, and if Warrick believed him, Warrick was just believing him to hold on to whatever sanity he had left. Catherine was covering up disbelief with pretty words, and Nick - - that was what hurt the most. Nick was the one he had counted on, Nick was the one he could've pointed at and said, "Okay, sure, maybe the rest of them, but Nick likes me, Nick understands me, and Nick would realize that I'd never do anything like that on purpose or on accident, because Nick knows what it's like to want to impress Grissom and Nick . . ."
Is my friend, dammit. Or was. Or something. I hate this.
"Sanders."
He ran a hand over his face. "Hodges. What is it?"
Hodges looked nervous, almost anxious. "I heard about Catherine. Sorry."
He almost laughed, but he bit the inside of his cheek. Sad day when Hodges was the one who believed him instead of Nick, when Hodges offered sympathy and Catherine offered blows. Sad day. Then again, it really had been a sad day.
"Thanks," he said, and again, "thanks."
"You didn't lose that evidence," Hodges said. "Everyone knows that, and if they don't, they'll figure it out." A beat. "Do you know if Grissom's coming back?"
"No. I don't."
"Maybe it would be better if he'd leave," Hodges said, and the tone of his voice implied that this was more than just a "maybe" scenario. "At least for a while. Give things a chance to cool off, you know?"
"I don't know," Greg said. He was trying to be polite because he could hardly afford to lose people who believed that he wasn't trying to frame Grissom, but his patience was wearing thin. He wanted Grissom back, and sooner rather than later, wanted Grissom back because Grissom had a tendency to keep things sane instead of letting them go like this. "Maybe that's true," he lied, and tucked his hands in his pockets. "Maybe he should."
"Are you coming back in tomorrow?" Hodges asked.
"Until they fire me, yeah." And that would be sooner rather than later, too.
Hodges blinked at him, as if he hadn't thought of that scenario at all, and Greg wasted empty minutes by imagining Hodges as a fish, swimming behind glass walls and just gulping at him. Big shiny goldfish eyes and sleek scales, a lab-coat fantail, and an open-shut mouth with words coming out like glistening bubbles, hanging in the aqua around him until they popped with a quiet pinching sound.
"Leaving?"
"Yeah. You?"
Hodges said, "I'm staying into dayshift. Special favors, extra cash."
"Good deal," Greg said. He'd done it a few times himself. Ecklie might hate the night-shift but he did love their expertise. He said, awkwardly, "See you," and then, because he had to tack on something at the end of such a strange conversation, he told Hodges that they could have lunch tomorrow or something, assuming Greg still had both his job and his sanity.
Hodges nodded at him, fish-style, and Greg headed out into the parking lot, a swish of cooler air surrounding him, and chilling him so much that felt like he could see steam pouring off his skin.
His car was near the wall, barely lit by the building's lights.
This has been one weird day. Very painful, and very nasty, but mostly, very, very weird.
"Lizzie Zimmer can bite me," he said as he dug through his pockets for the keys, feeling childish and snappish but no less indignant. "Good riddance. I mean, how do you manage to screw that many people over just by getting killed?"
"Good question. She's a little far gone to answer it, though."
He turned around, his keys jumping from his hand and clattering against the pavement. He knelt, hands against the cooling asphalt, and sent his fingers searching for them. Better to find the keys and peel out of here than see what this guy wanted. He just wanted to go home. Just wanted - - keys. Yeah. One fingertip had caught against a serrated metal edge, and he went down, belly flat, on the ground, stretching his arm a little further and - -
A hand was on his other wrist, twisting it behind his back. It gave a splintery sound, a cracking sound, like stepping on a dry twig. It made him flash on winters in New York, with the frozen scrim of ice and snow covering up the dying grass, crunching whenever his feet touched it. The frost hiding an untouched layer of twigs and soda cans like they were buried treasure. He barely registered the white-hot knot of pain that formed around his bone, he was too blinded by the surprise of it: how could this be happening, anyway? When his arm was freed again to drop and hang, loose and broken, he thought, Spiral fracture. It's not a clean break. He diagrammed it in his mind, fitted it with the searing pain his arm was taking on, and then, then he screamed.
His lips against the asphalt, he screamed, his lips scraping open even more on the grit and dirt, and a hand hauled him upwards and hit him hard in the mouth. His jaw snapped to the side - - not broken, just thrown out of place - - and then gloved fingers pressed over him. He screamed without sound.
"Look at you. You cry prettier than I thought you would."
I'm crying? he thought, bewildered, as another hot tear slid down his cheek.
A fist traced it, and that was a different sound from the arm altogether. It flattened and shattered under the harsh collision, and the pain was far more intense. He had only an instant before his nerve endings started screaming, and he was so confused that his only reaction was, Aw, man, that's NEVER gonna heal right! Then he was pressing his hand to his face, and he could hear himself making strange, howling noises, like the cries of some kind of wounded animal.
The man bent over him, and Greg kicked outwards with both feet, hoping to land some kind of blow, any kind of blow, didn't matter what, but he hit nothing. Just air, swishing around his ankles and battered tennis shoes, and he heard a horribly friendly laugh.
The man looked . . . wholesome. All-American. Yellow-haired and friendly, wearing a slightly overextended grin and a few drops of Greg's blood on his cheek.
Then he started talking, and his voice was the same way, smooth and warm, almost encouraging. The kind of guy that made you want to be his friend, except his hands were pinning Greg against the stucco wall of the crime lab, and what he was saying killed any kindness in his voice.
"I overheard you and your friend on the roof. He said you wanted to be a martyr, and you said he wanted to be a hero. A little silly of him, isn't it?"
The man was holding a nail - - actually, it was a little overlarge for a nail. More like a spike. Greg wasn't sure of the terminology. His eyes fixed on its silvery shine.
"This isn't a time for heroes anymore," the nice-looking man continued. "It's not a great time for martyrs, either, but being a martyr is just so much easier. A martyr is the poor man's hero, just because it takes so little effort. All you have to do," the nail slipping from hand to hand like some kind of conjuror's trick, drifting near Greg's neck just has he had opened his mouth again to scream, "is die for your cause."
The nail slid over his skin. "I wouldn't make any noise, if I were you."
All that came out was a whisper. His jaw hurt.
Thirty pieces of silver. Thirty pieces of silver. And a silver nail. What's the cost? What did I do?
"Besides, heroes get forgotten over time. All those courageous people you read about are only a tenth of all the people who have done what's right and saved the day. They've just been swept under the rug. Now, martyrs - - martyrs are different. People still pray to martyrs. Well, the Catholics do, anyway."
A slight pause. A hesitation. The skidding, scabbing pain of metal over his neck, tracing a path in stitches up his throat, skimming over the jugular to graze bare flesh. The man tilted Greg's chin upwards, forcing him to look, to see. He was still wearing that self-assured smile, the one that reminded Greg of Nick's, except now the smile seemed almost wolfish, not as friendly as it was before.
"Your boss is a Catholic, isn't he? Or used to be. My grandfather used to say that there was no such thing as a lapsed Catholic, that they all still did confession in their hearts. I bet he still remembers his Bible stories, his saints. You know Saint Peter, right? He didn't want to die like the son of God, because he knew he could never be so great as that. They crucified him upside-down, but they do say that he went to heaven."
The man laughed. If his smile had changed, the laugh was still perfect. It was still the kind of laugh that made people want to join in. He traced the nail up Greg's cheekbone, through the raw and still-open wound. He said, softly:
"Do you think that you'll go to heaven? You're really more of a saint than a savior, aren't you?"
He hit Greg again, this time in the stomach, and Greg heard a rib crack before he felt it. And then he waited for the new pain to set in and deepen. He wasn't processing. He was barely breathing. The only thing he was thinking was to dimly wonder if this was shock, and if it was, he'd gotten a raw deal, because he would've preferred adrenaline - - the kind of rush that could have given him more strength to fight back instead of the dreamy, distant connections his mind was making between broken bones and a New York winter.
And silver. Thirty pieces of silver and a single silver nail.
"I know what you want," the man said. "But you don't know who I am." He tapped his chin, and his bloody finger left moon-shaped patterns there, like oversized chicken pox. "Would this help?"
From his coat, he produced a rose. A white rose. It was new, fresh, and absurdly lovely in its own way. Greg's mind found the connection and made it.
He said, "Flowers. Matthew Flowers."
Flowers beamed at him. "Good job. Guess you are smart. Can you tell me why you have to die, then? Because I wasn't really told - - he doesn't say much about his reasons."
And there was the adrenaline he was looking for. His mind cleared, or at least lifted, so that the pain was on a different level, far beneath him. He was back on the roof again, only this time, it was just him and Flowers, not Nick, but it still all came down to a question of who could hurt who more. His shoulders were pinned against the wall, but his legs were free, and Flowers was standing over him.
He kicked upwards, hoping to nail the bastard right in the balls, but Flowers shifted his weight at the last minute and Greg's foot slammed against his thigh. Flowers snarled at him, all semblance of goodness gone, and hit him again. The face. The shoulder. The stomach. His legs, the force uncurling taut muscles until Greg's scream grew louder, heightening on and on until there was nothing left in his throat but scratchy pain, and he screamed anyway, first wordless screams and then noiseless screams, howls of nothingness.
He thought: But someone's going to save me. Someone's going to see that I'm here and they'll save me, even though I can't move anymore, they'll get me. Because that's the way things work out. Someone has to stop this, because I didn't do anything wrong.
There was a telephone pole at the end of the parking lot, and, on the ground next to it, a piece of plywood. Flowers dragged him there. Greg's skin scraped against the asphalt, and he heard his shirt tear along with his skin. Flowers kept a firm grip on his ankles.
"By the pricking of my thumbs," Flowers said softly, "something wicked this way comes. And that, I suppose, is your bad luck. Although you must have done something. There has to be some reason why Gil Grissom would want to kill you, otherwise it wouldn't be plausible to assume that he would be a suspect in your murder. Though I suspect that his Catholic heritage won't go over well, not when they see how you die. St. Peter," he added mildly, "remember?"
But Peter chose his death, and I don't choose this. I can't choose this. I just want to be home, watching Twilight Zone and heating up leftover spaghetti. I just want to sleep. I just want to have pancakes with Grissom and Sara again (eat this in remembrance of Me) and tease Grissom about how obscenely gross it is to drink grape juice (the blood of Christ, drink this in remembrance of Me). I just want
(salvation)
(hope)
(forgiveness)
(peace)
things to be back to normal.
Blood and tears were streaking down his face, sticky and wet.
His vision was turning silver, a blinding light stretching across his eyes. He always thought things would fade to black, but they only seemed to be getting brighter. It was like drowning, falling instead of rising, his breathing becoming more difficult, as if the air wasn't air at all but some thick, syrupy liquid, something that made filtering oxygen into his lungs difficult-to-impossible.
Flowers touched his cheek. "How does it feel?" Like a doctor, surveying a patient.
He tried to answer. Sweet, he thought. Painful. Drowsy. All that came out was a whispering noise, and Flowers shook his head in disappointment.
"Unfortunate," Flower said, "because I always wondered, and you're the first person to stay conscious long enough for me to ask."
He felt his arms being spread, his body lifted. His broken wrist dangled in the air, swollen and knotted, like a clump of driftwood. Whatever blood he had left rushed into his head, dizzying him. The nerves in his ankles tingled as Flowers tied them to the telephone pole.
They crucified Saint Peter upside-down. He was a disciple. A martyr. A saint.
Greg was sure there was a Saint Gregory, but he wasn't going to live long enough to ask Grissom what happened to that particular guy. Flowers was holding his wrists, spread-eagling them like Greg was getting ready to embrace all of Las Vegas, with its plastic prettiness, neon stars, and wise and brilliant criminalists that hadn't been able to save him when it really, really counted. Someone had paid thirty pieces of silver to bring Grissom down, and Greg was going to die because of a side-note.
Silver and gold, he thought disjointedly as the nail pierced his hand. I'm sorry for yelling at you, Nick.
He died that way in the parking lot, his feet bound above his head and his hands nailed to plywood attached to a telephone pole, his head downwards so that his own blood ran from the wounds on his chest and dripped into his eyes. He died thinking about Grissom, his own mind working against him, misfiring synapses until he was at that diner again, eating pancakes and feeling nervous but happy, with the worst still ahead of him and seeing a butterfly-slim chance of hope in the distance. He died with his mouth open, struggling to breathe, his arms pinned and his feet tied, he died bleeding and hurting, the only solid thing in his vision a white rose, floating in and out of the diner like a mirage he could not quite touch.