Disclaimer: I don’t own them. I used to own witty remarks about how I don’t own them, but I gave up.

Spoilers: UP TO 5x20! THIS IS HIGHLY SPOILERIFIC. TURN BACK NOW! DON’T EVEN READ MY AUTHOR’S NOTE BECAUSE IT’S SO SPOILERFILLLED! SARCASM IS FUN!

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Last chance. You still wanna read this? Ok.

A/N: This is perhaps the most ambitious, disturbing, thing I’ve ever written. I mean, I totally pulled a Grissom and channeled a crazy psycho rapist. For those of you who are spoiled, this is Committed, from the point-of-view of Adam. It’s slightly AU. It gels with most of the spoilers, but I totally know this will be NOTHING like whatever will air.

They lined us up, pressed against the wall like lost toddlers, corralled together, cramped, forced. They were always pushing us, and prodding us. Donald’s talking to himself, like he always does. I know why they’re pushing us around now. Because the “chester” is dead. Because Robbie got murdered. He bled all over himself, and all over Kenny, all the life in his veins just pouring out of him like water from a leaky faucet. But we’re all leaky faucets, and there’s no one who wants to fix us, turn us off. Instead they just leave us here, to drip.

They bring in people to investigate his murder, because in a place like this, people don’t just die. They get murdered. They kill themselves, or someone kills them. You don’t ever grow old, you just grow dead.

There’s a cop with a shiny golden badge pinned on his well-tailored suit, and wrinkles lining his face, telling the story of one too many crimes to solve, and one too many days without sleep.

There’s a man with a beard that looks like he duct taped a dead raccoon to his face, and cold steel colored eyes. He reminds me of steel; cool, unfeeling metal. There’s a slight arrogance about him that makes me snarl as he goes by. I know he hates me and wants to kill me. I can tell it, his lips are pursed together in disdain, and I want to spring out at him, but I don’t.

They don’t know where they’re going. They don’t know what they’re doing. But she does. She walks behind them all, her head held up boldly, but a flicker of fear in her eyes betrays her. She takes slow, purposeful, elegant steps, like she always knows where she’s going and always knows what to do when she gets there.

She’s beautiful. That odd kind of beautiful that’s intangible, and different. Some of the others make lewd gestures and she makes a little hissing sound, and grits her teeth. I don’t stop them, because they will know she’s mine.

I can already imagine what she’d be like if I had her cornered, I can imagine her screaming. She wouldn’t have that look on her face like she’s above all of us in here. She’d be begging for her life, and I’d have to decide if she deserved to live or not. Put her down to my level. Make her decisions for her.

I can imagine how she smells, and tastes, and talks, and feels. I can already feel her quivering under me. It’s all I can think about, and I follow her with my eyes.

Then they push us some more, moving us around again. They take us in, one by one, to a room which I’ve never been in before. It’s white, just like everything else in this stupid facility. The color is enough to make anyone go crazy. It means nothing. You are nothing. We are nothing. We live in nothing. We live for nothing. White. Four walls, all of white, white faces, white hands, but red blood. Robbie bleeding all over himself, dying all over Kenny. Because someone killed him, ended it all.

I wonder when they’ll come to kill me too.

The grizzled detective is in the room with us, along with a guard, and of course the man with the steel eyes. It’s bare except for a metal table, and metal chairs, and metal eyes, and metal faces. The detective looks almost bored, the steel eyed man has his slight look of disdain, and the guard won’t look me in the eyes.

It’s clear to them that I’m as crazy as all the others, and that they don’t want me to exist. I don’t deserve to exist. Anger flashes up inside me like summer lightning, and I have to stop myself from lashing out at them.

“So, did you know Robbie?” the detective starts.

I don’t look at him, but manage a shrug anyway, “It’s a small world in here. Exponentially smaller than the world you live in.”

The steel eyed man raises an eyebrow at me. He’s probably stunned I can use such big words. “Did you like Robbie?”

”He raped little children. Perfect, innocent, angelic, children. Why do you care that he died? Why do any of you care? You don’t care about me, or him. You never will. He was a drain on society, a worthless, meaningless individual, and yet you still are here, making a big deal out of it,” I growl, still looking at the hard steel of the table, a perfect mirror to the hard steel in the man’s eyes.

“So you killed him?” the man queries. My eyes flick to his nametag, and I read it off slowly, silently. Gil Grissom. Two G’s, Two I’s, Two S’s. Like animals, marching towards Noah Ark, two-by-two. Or cows going to slaughter.

“I don’t kill people!” I slam my palm down on the table, little pinpricks of pain erupting up my arm and I bare my teeth and growl at him. I hate him; I hate him because he thinks he’s better than all of us. He doesn’t realize he’s not. They’re all the same.

“But you rape them,” the grizzled cop elaborates contemptuously. “Great, a rapist with a conscience.”

I glare at him. “They want me. They know me. I can smell it. I can smell them. But I don’t kill people. Kenny didn’t kill him either. He just likes the blood. Kenny likes the blood. You’re looking in the wrong direction. No motive. People want to get rid of us. They’re just biding their time, just to get rid of us. They’re always mad at us.”

My thoughts fragment, I can’t control them anymore, and I shake my head and wordlessly my eyes return to the cold table. Better the cold table then the cold soulless people who walk about.

They let me go. They’re done interviewing me, and I go back to my room. But I can’t just sit there. I can’t do anything except think about her; think about feeling her, touching her, taking her. Because she’s mine, and I have to have her, and I have to show her how much I have her. How I control her.

I walk out of my room. They don’t lock the doors here. They don’t care. They don’t care if we kill ourselves, or someone else. We’re all just a drain on the world, a drain with a leaky faucet, dripping away.

I can see her, with Gil Grissom, poking around the nurse’s station. The nurse’s station; the fishbowl of glass from which they watch us, distorting us, separating us from them, watching as we drown and drip and leak and flounder, like a bunch of fish.

They open and close drawers. She works with a fluidity that lulls me. He however, regards her with a fondness which makes me bitter and enraged. He wants her. But he can’t have her, because she’s mine, and I’m about to show him that.

He can’t get one of the filing cabinets open. He mumbles something about keys. Gil Grissom walks out, just as she picks up a ceramic heart, examining it.

I slip in after Gil Grissom slips out of sight. I’m very quiet, but my heart is pounding against my ribcage in expectation and a jittery, tingling feeling passes over my body. I close and lock the door, and her head jerks around when she hears the click. The click that locks her in with me.

“Are you a very religious person?” I ask casually, trying to control the bubbling excitement that surges through me. Slow, it’s always better when it’s slow.

She lets the heart go and it cracks. She turns her head to look at me. She opens and closes her mouth a few times before she finally manages to talk, and I can see her swallow, a jittery movement that passes through her long slender neck, “Sometimes.”

“I believe in karma. That everything happens for a reason.”

Her breath is shallow and ragged, I can tell she’s frightened; she’s backing away from me when she bumps into the cabinets that line the wall, her hips pressing against the handles of the drawers.

“See, Robbie died for a reason. Everything happens for a reason, even the bad things, and Robbie died for a reason.”

”Because he was a bad person?” she asks, and I realize she’s trying to get a confession out of me. I realize that she isn’t broken enough just yet if she can still focus on her job.

“Yes. There’s that. He was terrible. A chester, a child molester. But there was also another reason, so we could meet. So that I could be with you, have you.”

Her eyes dart around the room, and I’m reminded of a rabbit, stuck in a trap, waiting as the hunter comes to kill it. Eyes wild, breathing fast and shallow, struggling against the trap, still desperate to find a way out

I take a few steps towards her and she winces, and closes her eyes.

“We’re all here for a reason, you know? Everyone, pre-destined, pre-designed, pre-coordinated. We were meant for each other, right? I mean, I can tell. I could tell with the others too.”

“Listen, you don’t want to do this,” she pleads, her breath even faster than before, and for a moment I fear she’ll pass out because she’s breathing so fast. “There’s cameras, and witnesses, and it doesn’t make any sense.”

“Right. ‘Cause what are they going to do? Put me in jail? This is worse than jail; this is the end of the line. It can’t get any worse. It can only get better.” My face spreads cracks into a smile. I feel giddy and jovial.

There are silent tears on her face now, little roadmaps of sorrow. “Please. Please don’t kill me.”

“I don’t kill people, dammit!” I scream, jumping forward. She retreats further against the wall, edging to one-side, positioning herself further away from me. But she can’t run anymore.

“I’m not going to kill you, I don’t kill people.” I repeat it, because it deserves to be mentioned again.

She tries to break away, sprint past me, but I press her up against the wall, and she struggles underneath me. She’s stronger than I expected, hitting at me, fighting desperately, not like the others. She’s going to be more of a challenge, I can tell, so I put my hand over her mouth as she writhes and wheezes, trying to get air, fighting for air.

Then pandemonium breaks out.

Someone pulls the alarm, and there’s a pounding on the wall and Gil Grissom is flipping out on the other side, and I grin at him. I press her hard up against the wall, and fiddle in my pocket for the sharp cold ceramic that I know is there, she breaks away briefly, but I catch up to her on the way to the door, grabbing her by her wrists and forcing her down onto her knees in one swift movement.

Gil Grissom redoubles his efforts and tries to break the glass. Bullet-proof glass isn’t going to shatter. I chortle at him merrily. It’s a rare opportunity when I get to have two panicking victims, and I press the sharp ceramic against her neck, standing behind her.

“Just let me go, I promise nothing bad will happen, nothing,” she chokes out.

“Shut up,” I growl, “Shut up or I’ll grind you.” And I place the cool piece of ceramic up against her throat and she stops speaking, just desperate sobs and squeaks and the sound of the alarm remain. She can’t tell her lies anymore, more lies to fill up this place.

I’m too close, I’m too close. This can’t end now. She can’t stop it. She wants it. I can smell her. I can smell her fear, and her sweat, and something vaguely floral on her. She wants this, just like I need this and I can imagine it.

Plunging into her, on top of her, I can imagine how she’d scream and moan, and plead with me. I can imagine how many rattling breaths she would take before it would all be over. I can imagine tasting the soft skin on the back of her neck.

I can see them outside the fish bowl. It’s so ironic now how the tables have turned. I’m watching them out there, floundering. They’re drowning in liability, and guilt, rage, and all sorts of emotions.

I see the bitter Nurse snarling at me in consternation, as though I’m just some annoying child, and I shout. “Get her away from here! Get her out!” I hate her contempt. I hate her lies. I hate her deceit and her games.

“Open the damn door!” Gil Grissom says.

I smile at him. He doesn’t think he’s better than me now, but he still doesn’t understand. He needs to see how we’re all dripping. More leaky faucets. I’m going to make her drip.

I press the ceramic hard into her throat, hard enough to cut, not hard enough to kill. She makes a terrified squeaking sound, and I’m reminded of a cat I had once, killing a mouse. Her throats dripping all over her now, I know how much neck wounds bleed. Does he see her dripping? She’s dripping now, just like all of us.

I feel like I’m floating, high above all of this. A pure moment of ecstasy, right before the act. There are so many flashing lights, so much disjointed noise that I just put out of my head right now, and I lean over and smell her hair. She’s mine, she’s all mine. We were meant for this. She’s going to be better than the other three. I ignore her attempts to turn away from me, because soon enough she’ll know.

And then it ends.

The door rockets open and slams against its frame, denting the hard metal. I jump, I hadn’t expected it, and the moment the hand pressing the ceramic to her throat goes slack, she scrambles away and runs desperately out into the hallway.

I fling myself towards her, and arms grab at me. Muscular arms of the guards pulling me back. But they can’t fucking do this! SHE WAS MINE! I HAVE HER! I OWN HER! THEY CAN’T TAKE ME AWAY FROM HER!

I rage and claw at them, kicking, tearing, frothing with anger. I was so impossibly close, so near to her. I can still smell her, and now she’s gone.

They pry the ceramic from me, but I still manage to superficially cut a few of them.

They handcuff me. It’s a familiar feeling, the bulky metal bracelets around my arm, reminding me I have no right to think for myself anymore. There’s a small pit of anger still rollicking around my stomach, but I ignore it as they drag me back into the room.

They make me wait, with guards there. As though waiting will make me crack. I’ve seen it before. They’ll also probably offer me a lot of water, and then not let me go to the restroom. But what they don’t know is that I have cracked. I’m dripping. They are ALL dripping.

The detective enters. He looks shaken, but he’s probably seen worse. Then Gil Grissom enters, but this time his eyes aren’t steel. They’re the color of the sky right before a storm, and there’s this tense manner about him which I’ve seen before. He’s dripping, and I wonder briefly if he’s going to kill me. I wonder if it’s as fun to be killed as people in here say it is to kill. I bet it is; feeling the life drained out of you, seeing someone on the edge of themselves as they brutally murder you.

He sits down next to the detective, takes a pen out of his pocket, and proceeds to strangle it with his hands. His knuckles are white.

“Where’d you get the piece of ceramic, Adam?” the detective asks in his smooth calm voice, like nothing ever bothers him.

“Flying toads gave it to me,” I grin.

“I thought you said he was lucid,” the detective mumbles to Gil Grissom.

“It was a fucking joke you asshole! I was being facetious! Do you like this answer better; I’m not going to tell you, find out for yourself? Huh? Do you like it?”

Gil Grissom’s grip tightens over the pen, and I wonder if it will explode. I can imagine the little plastic shards and the spray of ink. Tiny drops of ink all over everything, just like blood. Dripping like blood.

“I like that answer. I do, because I’m going to find out Adam. And then—” the detective drawls until I cut him off.

“And then what? You’ll send me to prison? No, nothing’s worse than this place. It’s just the last stop on the way to Hell! So what? Stick the needle in my arm! STICK IT! GODDAMMIT I’M READY TO DIE!” I froth, more frothing. I’m so angry and I don’t even know why, but I do know that if my hands weren’t cuffed I’d claw Gil Grissom’s eyes out, because he thinks he’s so smart.

“Why’d you do this?” Gil Grissom asks, and his voice is hoarse like he just came from a baseball game, or he’s been smoking, or he just took a shot of whisky. But I know why his voice is really hoarse. Because he’s been yelling, begging for her life, just like she was begging for her life, in all their ignorance.

“Why do you care? You couldn’t care less. You don’t care about any human being but yourself,” I snarl. It’s true to. A man like that, he lives in a world of objects. He doesn’t live in the world of people.

He grips the pen tighter. I struck a nerve, “Just tell me damnit!” he snaps.

“Because she was mine,” I shake my head at their ignorance, I can’t expect them to understand. They don’t understand anything. They don’t understand us, or me, or how it works. “Because she knew what she was doing, because she wanted me. But mostly because she was mine. She’s still mine.”

He gets up real quickly, the chair scrapes the ground because he stands so quickly, and he lets the pen drop on the table, but his knuckles are still a flaming white.

He grabs my chin, and whips my head up to him, to face his stormy eyes, and they’re so wet I can tell that a storm is coming.

“She’s not yours. She’s mine.”

And he walks out.

The detective looks at him like Gil Grissom’s lost his mind, and I just start laughing.

He has lost his mind. They all have.

They’re all dripping.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Fin-