Author: Sazmuffin
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Title: Dirty Fingernails
Rating: K+
Summary: Greg always managed to get dirt under his fingernails.
Greg always managed to get dirt under his fingernails. Grime, gunk, DNA, you name it, it got under Greg's nails. He didn't understand it. He didn't wash his hands in dirt; how could they possibly get so dirty?
Dirt from crime scenes with grimy castoff and bloody stairs, decomposing bodies camouflaged by gardens, broken necks from falls off of balconies, windy deserts that housed flesh-eating maggots.
Dirt from fights and tumbles, bruising faces with internal bleeding and collapsing organs, dirt from shoves and pushes, cliffs and gorges.
Dirt from distrust and unspoken truths, shocking lies and malicious insults. Dirt from cheating husbands and mail-order brides, deaths of children and breathing criminals, from salty tears of sadness, of anger, of happiness.
Dirt from released killers, from horrendous trials, false evidence, over-analyzed theories and tired judges. From countless rejections and fake pictures, from wrong signals and bad decisions.
Dirt from far-fetched betrayals and tainted innocence. Dirt from bloody sheets and seminal fluid, from the coldness of a hospital room to the scorching heat of the Vegas sun.
His skin chilled as it cooled, the sheets clinging to his legs like a lost two year old. He laid in his bed, his heart pounding like a race horse. His mind clouded and all he could remember where the cold cases and the dead cults and the wrongly convicted and the readily deceived. He remembered all the family pictures that sat happily in a row, all the blood-spattered counter tops, all the people who couldn't be helped. A stabbed wife, a drowned brother, a shot enemy, the accidental death of a best friend.
His hand gripped his heart and he took in a shaky breath. Not another nightmare. The hazy faces, the mumbled voices, the unwelcome visitors.
He was there to witness it, leaving with dirt under his fingernails. He sat in the ice-cold water of his shower, letting the droplets run down his face.
Tomorrow is another day in a scrapbook of memories.