Dirge of Silence
by Camilla Sandman
Disclaimer: The characters mentioned within are CBS's and they are probably treated more nicely there.
Author's Note: Written on request for Andy. Warning for character death and angst. Not for the fluffy-minded. Thanks to Wiccagirl for encouragement and title assistance.
Grissom's quote is by Arthur Schopenhauer and is in the public domain.
II
(Silence is gone.)
Blood beating, beating, drums of war. Beat. Kill. Beat. Kill. Beat. Kill. Kill, and the drums will fade. Silence then.
The beast is loud. Roars. Howls. Wants to rip and tear and pass the pain on before it eats all of him.
Pleading, the prey. Insignificant words and still he listens.
"Didn't mean to," the prey says. "Please don't kill me. Please. I have a daughter. I want to live."
'Should have thought of that before you killed,' the beast thinks with contempt. Blood will look good on the asphalt, red on black, almost like human rust.
Yes.
II
Her lips are red against his dark flesh and he savours the image, carefully placing it between memories he intends to have engraved into his mind so deeply that even old age cannot erase them.
...the smell of apples and sugar and spring in childhood's kitchen, innocence still the shadow of Warrick Brown and grandma's eyes laughing at him, the mirror of his...
...Adrianna's moans, urging him on and he knows for the first time that he is something desirable, something almost beautiful and his grandmother didn't lie and he is finally, finally a man and now she screams and he is taller than the sky...
...the card flips over and there is silence before the win is confirmed. The silence is the drug. The silence is the prize. The silence is just him and the knowledge and then the roar comes and he plays on, cards and bets and the bright lights of Vegas, waiting for his next win...
...Grissom's voice and two little words, all Warrick's wanted since he stepped into the brightly lit lab and his new life. "Good work," says Grissom, and nods. "Good work..."
...Catherine's mouth on his skin, kissing, tasting, burning him until he's ashes and coals and the roar of the firestorm and she smiles and he thinks he could love her might love her must love her and her lips are redder than blood and warmer still...
II
The prey is already sweating, warm with fear and the sun's onslaught. Too bright for a death's day, this seems. The shine bounces off the gun's metal and the prey's still blood-soaked knife and almost blinds him. Twinkle, twinkle, Catherine's blood, how I detest where you are! Still enough vision to aim, though. If he shoots, he'll probably get off. A murderer with a knife and the Sheriff won't even pause to consider anything else. Twinkle, twinkle, little killer, how I wonder what you are... Instant justice in a bullet. Instant damnation in a cartridge. Killing a murderer is still killing. Twinkle, twinkle, Warrick's beast, how I fear what you are.
Maybe this is death.
II
This is death.
There is fear in her voice and he runs and runs and it hurts; fear and strain and burn in a mind's knife that tears his flesh. He already knows he'll be too late, too late. Time runs only one way, like blood, and the flow is already a flood.
His hands are warm as he reaches for her fallen body and the blood sticks to him, as if longing for a new host now that she is dying. She is dying. He closes his eyes for a second, for a pause, for a prayer. When he opens them again, there is nothing in her gaze and the blood is dying. This is death. Don't look away.
(Godthisis'thappeningthisisn'thappeningifIclosemyeyesitwillallbeadream.)
II
"Warrick!"
The name is familiar, for a moment almost his. But he doesn't look away from the prey, doesn't ignore the roar and the steel in his hands, waiting for just one pull of his finger.
"Warrick! We've got him now, put the gun away."
"He killed her."
"I know. But you're not the judge."
Between hunter and prey there is only one law.
It kills.
II
"He's hunting his victims like a cat?"
"That's Grissom's theory. The guy slices them with a long knife and uses it to tear, almost mimicking claws and jaws. This is the third in a month." "A serial cat before breakfast. Great. Doesn't anyone rob each other in this town anymore?" "Catherine? You all right?" "I thought we established you're my boyfriend and not my mom last month, Warrick." "You just sound tired." "Who isn't these days?" "I still have my bag packed. You, me, Lindsey and the bright sun of Mexico. Just say the word." "I told you last week it's not as easy as that." "It can be." "Yes, and Ecklie will have both our asses for breakfast the minute he puts two and two together and gets Catherine and Warrick and the bright sun of Mexico. I told you, I'm not risking my job right now." "Fine." "Fine." Breath. Breath. Silence. "This must be the place. I see Grissom's car up ahead." "Hey Warrick?" "Yeah?" "I want to say the word very much." "I know." "Love you." "Know that too."
II
"Catherine wouldn't have wanted this," Grissom says, still approaching carefully. But Grissom doesn't know her, not as Warrick has known her. Grissom shouldn't be listened to.
"Please, Warrick. Don't do this."
The beast wants. He wants. He wants, oh he wants, he wants time to be reversed and the world to be changed, one little change, one little case not to have been theirs. He wants it so bad he can taste it, like sharp metallic ice in his mouth.
Time doesn't bend to will.
The taste doesn't wash away.
II
She tastes of soap and disinfectants and something sharp and chemical, like an aftershave of the lab clinging to her. Perhaps it clings to him too. Perhaps death clings to them all for so long that they start doing things just to remind themselves they're still alive.
Like kissing Catherine Willows for the first time against a Denali clad in night, the gun at her hip burrowing into his skin and the lab on her lips. Maybe this is life.
II
"I don't want to lose you too," Grissom says, pleading now.
Lost.
...Mexico's sun on Catherine's back and his hands too, gliding across the skin and the lotion smelling of apples...
...Lindsey laughing, delight in her eyes as she rips the paper covering her gift, her joy a gift to him. Uncle Warrick. Daddy Warrick...
...The little hand clutching his, the eyes mirroring his and the skin dark and pale come together. His and hers, joined now in new DNA and new blood.
...Wrinkles and grey hair and still beauty in her, their fingers laced as they watch the grandchildren play in spring and the silence an embrace...
...A future.
What might have been. What is dead.
Catherine. Oh, Catherine.
II
"Catherine?"
She rolls around to face him, her hair golden in the sun and her eyes brighter still.
"Are you sorry this happened?"
"That's a serious tone for pillow talk," she smiles, kissing the fingerprints as she takes his hand.
"This is the tenth time we've slept together. I think that makes this a serious relationship."
"You're no fun."
"You're too much fun. You'll kill me one of these days."
"Poor Warrick."
"Kiss him and make it better."
She laughs against his lips and he thinks he can stay like this forever, past and future crashed into a silent morning present, Catherine's breath mingling with his.
"I'm not sorry," she whispers. "And even if I was, I never look back."
"What do you see ahead?"
"You."
And the wind taps against the window, humming a song only it knows, but he imagines it a lullaby for Catherine and Warrick, lulling time and present to sleep.
II
The wind rises, lifting the dust and drowning the faint sounds of distant Las Vegas. Now sounds the desert's dirge in the silence after blood. For Cath, for him, for everyone. Life is merely the pause before death and there is always someone to mourn.
Kill
(and she'll be avenged, the beast howls)
Now
(and never look back, Catherine whispers)
Gun
(is held like this for the best aim, Brass sneers)
Bullet
(will tear the prey's flesh, but won't heal hers, logic dictates)
Blood
(but her lips are still redder, he remembers)
Death
(for death, blood for blood, an eye for an eye, balancing the scales, Lady Justicia shows)
Vengeance
(taken will often tear the heart and torment the conscience, quotes Grissom)
Do
(onto others as they do onto you, grandma says)
Kill
(and she'll still be dead, he knows)
(still dead, he knows)
The wind rises, rises, rises... And falls. The drums die. The prey fades to human. The gun is lowered. The beast falters and there is just Warrick and the grief that has become him.
Silence now.
(he knows)
And then he cries.
II
Dirge
(is the silence)
(and the silence moves on)
FIN