A/N: Yes, I know. I have another story I should be working on, but I've been buried under the weight of performances and exams and writing a chapter of Lost and Found is seriously time consuming business. Also, this little character study has been following me around for days, begging to be written. Goddessofsnark, I hold you completely responsible for this one. Enjoy and review, and I apologize in advance if any of you feel I have stolen valuable minutes from your lives. (And I'll do a very happy dance if anyone knows where the title came from.)

Nothing Like You've Ever Known

Garret Macy sat wearily at his desk, gazing longingly at said desk's bottom drawer, then regretfully at his open door and window-encased office. He couldn't open the drawer; it was too dangerous. Jordan, Nigel, Lily, or any one of his innumerable employees could come by at any minute and catch his moment of indulgence.

Finally, he could control his desire no longer. If he could just get the drawer open, the rest could be accomplished so quickly that no one would notice. He reached for it, his hands tantalizingly close to the handle…

"Dr. Macy…" It was Bug, coming to share his latest findings on yet another pointless death. As Bug droned on about how some insect with an impossibly long scientific name had helped him determine that the fifty year old mother of ten could only have died of poisoning brought on by prolonged exposure to a toxin that had leaked into her water supply, Garret slipped into a daze, nodding in what seemed to be the appropriate places while dreaming longingly of the evening to come, when he could shed the morgue's shackles and be free to indulge as he saw fit.

He knew he shouldn't drink. He was a medical examiner, for crying out loud. He had opened people up and seen the damage too much alcohol consumption did to their livers, but copious draughts from the bottle of scotch in his desk were rapidly becoming his only way of making it through the day, the only way to make the long morgue hours bearable.

Finally, the hour rolled around when he could bid farewell to the building that was slowly swallowing him whole. With muttered goodnights to Jordan and Nigel, who were just about to set off on another mission of dubious legality, he escaped, practically running to his waiting automobile, which he maneuvered through the city streets as quickly as sanity would allow.

Throwing his keys on the table, he entered his apartment and made his way to his beloved Victrola, perusing his collection of records for the perfect accompaniment for his mood. He paused on Ethel Merman's Disco Album, but ultimately decided that, while he loved Ethel as much as the next red-blooded American male, she would not be suitable company for this very special evening. Then, he spotted it: the perfect recording, which he placed lovingly on the Victrola, finessing the needle into its place atop the vinyl.

With music squared away, Garret sauntered to his closet, contorting his body into an odd, bow-like shape in order to reach the plain white box hidden in its deepest recesses. With reverence, he opened the lid, almost afraid to touch its contents. It was something too perfect, too beautiful to belong to him, but he knew what he had to do. Carefully, he lifted the object from its tissue paper wrappings and stepped into it.

And there, as the opening chords of Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite" filled the room, Garret allowed his soul to merge with sequins and tulle, forgetting the trials of the day that were causing him to become increasingly alcohol dependent and dancing wildly, happy as a man can only be when wearing a fluffy pink tutu.