Abandon All Hope Ye
Summary: "Somebody's read American Psycho," Sara mused, examining the photographs Greg had spread out across the table. "Is it worth the read?" he asked. "If you like gore and sex and materialism… yeah, you'd love it."
Disclaimer: I am not, nor am I in any way affiliated with CBS, Anthony Zuiker, or anybody else involved in the production of CSI.
Note: This is not a shipper fic. If there's any ship here, it's unrequited GSR. Frankly, this could happen on the show. Me, writing a casefile. Will wonders never cease?
"Well, she's all yours," David said to Sara, standing up and brushing off his knees. Greg distantly heard her thank him, but he was busy appraising the scene. He approached the victim on the settee.
She wasn't an unattractive specimen, Greg reasoned, cocking his head to the side and surveying her laid-out body. She wasn't the kind of girl over whom his eyes would just slide without seeing her, but neither was she the sort of girl a guy noticed first in a crowded room. Greg admitted to himself a moment later that he probably wouldn't notice her second or third, either. She was the kind of girl who smiled at the gorgeous man sidled up next to her at the bar but didn't expect him to smile back, and Greg personally liked that kind of girl best. He'd been nearly done with the whole college thing before he'd gotten around to girls and sex, and his first hadn't looked too different from the dead girl in front of him now. A little blonder, perhaps, but otherwise, the same prettily plain features and the same softness of form.
"If you're going to stare at her, at least do it through the camera lens," Sara said irritably from somewhere across the room. He jumped at the intrusion of her voice and lifted the unwieldy camera from the relaxed position he'd held a moment before. Not that Sara snapping at him irritably was tremendously out of the ordinary. Actually, it was a fairly everyday occurrence considering that was how often they encountered one another. He'd overheard Nick none too tactfully informing Warrick that he thought Sara'd gone off the deep end, and a year earlier Greg might have defended her sanity. Now, though, he was finding himself sliding down a well lubricated slope towards agreeing with Nick after all, and that same slope seemed to be taking him away from that old crush.
He snapped a few pictures from his original position, just getting a shot of her whole form, laid out on that little settee like a Jack the Ripper victim. He cringed at the sight for the first time (a delayed reaction he wasn't willing to examine more closely). There wasn't a lot left of her abdominal cavity.
"I'm desensitized to this kind of thing," he said in a quivery voice, lowering the camera and squinting for Sara in the dim apartment. The only light was directly over the body. "This is a… dismembered body and I'm staring at her thinking, 'gee, she'd be exactly the kind of girl I'd date if she hadn't been totally eviscerated.' What kind of person am I?"
She came up behind him, which he sort of expected even though he jumped again when she set a hand on his shoulder. "She looks like every girl in the country, Greg." Then she blinked and withdrew her hand. "Did you notice that?" she asked breathlessly, stepping closer to the body and digging a mini flashlight out of one of her vest compartments. She knelt down next to the settee and peered at the dead woman's shredded hosiery. He moved closer, transferring the camera to his other hand so Sara wouldn't knock her head on it if she turned to him. "I don't think this is blood," she said, squinting at the odd stain on the clump of nylon wedged between the woman's knees.
"Looks like motor oil," he suggested, judging from the brownish color. She was already digging a swab out of her vest. "Hodges will be pleased to see you. You've just got all the boys, don't you?" It was out of his mouth before he thought about it. She snapped the protective cover closed and her movements became jerky as she concentrated on ignoring him.
"Just take the pictures. Five rolls should do it for the body." She stood up and moved away with her shoulders tensed. He sighed and lifted the camera to shoot from the body's feet, up.
At the scene, with the body in the context of the whole place, the crime hadn't seemed as gruesome. Now that she was spread out across a layout table in tight shots of her grievous injuries and unblemished extremities, Greg had to bodily cringe. The pictures looked like something out of a Tarantino movie, something he might have enjoyed for its gore if he didn't have to analyze it.
"I see you already got the pictures." He looked up to find Sara in the doorway, shrugging into a blue lab coat. He chose not to comment on the rough tone of her voice or the puffy redness around her eyes. "Jacqui's got nothing on the prints from that knife you found by the body."
"Yeah, but we figured that would happen, right?" he said, turning back to his spread. The eight-by-ten glossies were as nice as any portfolio shot a model might have, saving the subject matter. They seemed more like the kind of pictures he might expect to find on a viral video site than an actual crime scene set.
"Somebody's read American Psycho," Sara mused, examining the photographs over his shoulder. He turned his head to raise an eyebrow at her. "It's this novel I had to read in school. The professor was a complete nut job and the whole semester we read books he thought should have been banned just so that he could spark debates about first amendment rights."
"Is it worth the read?" he asked, spinning in the chair to face her.
"If you like gore and sex and materialism…" She paused and smiled at his suddenly eager expression. "Yeah, you'd love it." He pretended to look hurt but now that he saw her whole face, he was suddenly more concerned with the picture she presented, smiling genuinely but still red-eyed. He idly wondered what Grissom had done (or, more likely, not done). Frankly, he was tired and confused by their relationship and privately wished Grissom would just take the step, hurt her once and for all, and be done with it. She sniffed and dropped her eyes to the table, light moment over.
He turned back to the pictures, the only touchstone both of them shared at the moment. Neither of them was thinking about their awkwardness or explosions or cold showers and she wasn't even stewing in angst over Grissom. "So tell me about this book," he prompted as she lifted a stack of shots of the victim's neck.
"It's about this Wall Street guy in the eighties who hates everything, especially gay people even though he product drops every five words and is way too concerned with what other people are wearing. And he kills people. Strangers in the street, a male friend, some hookers." Sara shrugged and traded the neck shots for ones of the wadded up nylons. "I dropped that sample off to Hodges as soon as we got back this morning. He might have gotten some results."
Greg glanced at the clock and shrugged noncommittally. "It's only eleven now, though, and Grissom had a big case yesterday." Sara's lips thinned but she nodded in understanding. "You know what a pathetic suck-up Hodges is. We'll be lucky to get results before Sunday. What's a murdered woman, after all, in the face of potential brownie points with the boss?" Perhaps Greg was a little more vehement than he'd intended but she didn't say anything else.
"I'm not a monster," he said, staring straight ahead at a point above Sara's left ear. She fought the urge to shudder and pressed her palm flat on the paper in front of her. "No, really. I'm not a monster."
"Mr. Island, your fingerprints were all over the murder weapon, which was found at the scene. Your DNA was found on Ms. Almasy's pantyhose." There is something hollow about her voice.
From her spot in the shadows behind Sara, Sofia added, "All signs are pointing to monster at this point, Mr. Island."
"Not to mention the motor oil we found on those pantyhose… and unfortunately for you, you work in a garage." Sara lifted a photograph from the folder and turned it to face the man across the table from him. "We just want to know where her organs are, Mr. Island."
He swallowed at the image and locked his pale blue eyes on hers. "I don't know," he said in a blank voice. "I didn't eat them or anything freaky, if that's what you're implying. I'm not Dahmer or anything." He shuddered delicately. "I think I need a lawyer."
"I think you're right," Sofia agreed.
A word of explanation… I read American Psycho a good three years ago (yes, I was something like fourteen-- shut up) and found it enjoyable if I, you know, skipped over the parts where Patrick gored homeless men and dogs and made sausages out of the prostitutes he murdered. Ellis's style is fantastic, even if the book's subject matter and content are completely disturbing and quite possibly disgusting. I recommend it, but hesitantly. It's not for the faint of heart.
You're right if you don't think if feels finished. I would say I'll finish it and upload an updated version, but we all know I won't... mostly because I'll be busy with 50lyricsfanfiction on LJ, where I've claimed Summer Roberts of the OC.
Oh, and the title? The first four words of the novel, conveniently nicked from Dante.
--tinhen / written January 12, 2006 / posted February 27, 2006