FIC: Points of Contact, 8/100
Title: Points of Contact
Fandoms: CSI/HP
Pairing: Warrick/Sirius
Prompt: #08 Silence
Word Count: 1400
Rating: NC-17 overall
Disclaimer: Me no own; you no poo sue.
Series Summary: When a Muggle-killing wizard sets up shop in Vegas, the hunt to find him is bound to make for some strange bedfellows.
Author's Notes: Written for 100_situations. One ongoing story, not a series of drabbles. Set postwar in the Potterverse, circa 3rd season CSI (around 2001, for anyone who’s counting). Crackishness, AU, slash. Previous parts/ prompt table here.
Curled comfortably on the floor of Warrick’s apartment, Sirius lay with his chin on his paws and tried to remember that he was supposed to answer to the name “Creon.” It wasn’t that he minded the name. He was certain that Muggles could have come up with much worse. Creon was a vast improvement on “Big Guy” which Sirius had feared would stick after Nick had begun using it. In all likelihood, Nick would probably call him that forever, but at least not everyone would.
Lying on the couch nearby was Warrick. Warrick was now Creon’s human, an arrangement which suited Sirius just fine. Made his job a world easier, in fact. In the week since Warrick had woken up in hospital, Sirius had spent only minutes away from his side. He had scarcely let the man out of his sight and Warrick, far from objecting, encouraged him.
Sirius didn’t know exactly what Warrick remembered from the night of his “accident” but the young CSI hadn’t needed anyone to tell him that Sirius-- that Creon-- had saved his life. From the moment he awoke, his hand resting on Sirius’s head, he had known. So Sirius-- Creon-- had slipped into his role as “Warrick’s dog” without complaint on anyone’s part (save for a few nurses whose sensibilities he seemed to offend by his mere presence, but as he and Warrick were no longer in their sterile and astringent domain, Sirius put the matter out of his mind.)
When you came right down to it, Sirius figured, he was actually pretty lucky. Las Vegas had a lot of criminalists. Any one of them could have been assigned to that first scene with that poor Muggle girl, thus becoming the next key target in this twisted pattern of killings. Sirius could have been stuck protecting anyone-- he could have been stuck shadowing Conrad Eckley, for pity's sake! (Sirius had seen the dayshift supervisor on only a few occasions, but that was quite enough to make him count his blessings, such as they were).
But Warrick, Sirius liked. Oh, he didn’t know much about dogs, that was true. Not like Nick (whom Warrick had in fact phoned on a few occasions to ask the simplest of canine-related questions), but since Sirius wasn’t really a dog, he supposed that didn’t matter much in the end. And anyway, if he really admitted it to himself, it felt absolutely brilliant lying here in the quiet of Warrick’s living room, feeling a companionable proximity with this clever young man, and suffering no pressure at all to say anything.
For the first time in what felt like a life’s age, there was no one calling on Sirius to explain his very existence. There was, in fact, no need to break the silence at all.
Warrick turned a page in the file he was reading. It was a copy of Grissom’s report on the accident scene and the recovered car. Grissom and Nick had processed both while Warrick was in hospital. Lying open on the coffee table nearby was the file on the original Washington Court case as well as the Scotland Yard file on Sirius himself. Grissom had sent these over at Warrick’s request, and even though he was still on medical leave, Warrick was wasting no time in pouring over all of them.
Sirius didn’t need a file to tell him that the “accident” at the drainage canal had really been an attempt on Warrick’s life. He already knew that, even if the Muggles never would. What he didn’t know was whether the killer had been aware of his target’s bodyguard when he (or she) summoned that lightning strike. If it really was Snape behind these killings, as Harry so strongly suspected, it would be just like the man to call Sirius out with a blatant attempt on his charge’s life-- not because he would have expected to succeed right under Sirius’s nose, but just to force his hand. And if it wasn’t....
Well, it was a fair guess that whoever it was would now know that Sirius was here, even if they hadn’t before. How that might affect their next move, Sirius could only guess. What he needed was to find out what the Muggles had learned so far and what they were making of the puzzle pieces they had. But that was easy enough to manage now.
Hours later, after Warrick was asleep, Sirius resumed his human form, sat down on the sofa, and read the reports. He learned that the abandoned car had been registered to a Sandra Bolton-Chang and that Grissom had ID’ed her as their dead girl off of her prints, but that he and Nick had had no luck identifying two sets of unknowns they’d lifted from the car as well. The registration, though it indeed listed her address as 1307 Washington Court, had expired two years ago, which Sirius suspected was the time that Ms. Bolton-Chang had first taken up with wizards.
As Bolton-Chang was apparently her married name, Sirius had a fair guess as to the character of her relationship with the Wizarding world: Sandra meets a nice young wizard, they move into a safely warded Unplottable house, keep a few Muggle conveniences (the car, for instance-- thought it likely bore some sort of magical modifications), start to plan a little family. All very quaint.
And then the missus and her unborn baby turn up dead in their home, the wards apparently removed, or at least frayed threadbare-- which someone had to have done on purpose.
It was a fair guess that whoever had removed the wards was the same person who’d killed her. The dark wizard (or wizards) behind all these deaths had already shown a propensity for this sort of twisted game: dismantle all the checks and safeguards that keep the secrets of the wizarding world from Muggles, then murder each of the Muggles unfortunate to come into contact with the newly-bared traces of magical society.
But all of that still left the question of the husband-- where was he, and did he have something to do with his wife’s death? About him, the file said little, either because Grissom and Nick had turned up dead ends or because they hadn’t done much searching yet. There was only a name: Song Chang.
There were, of course, photographs of the car, the scene, notes on trace evidence, and fingerprints-- all pieces to a puzzle they could barely begin to assemble. And there was one other thing as well. Pictures of a key recovered from the car’s glove box. It was small and brass, and its bow was set with a chunk of green stone, into which had been etched an unmistakable icon: fire. Sirius didn’t need a second glance to know that it must unlock something magical. No Muggle would make a key like that. The mystery was what the key opened and what they would find inside.
Laying aside Grissom’s report then, Sirius passed a cursory glance over the file that bore his own name. He found its contents wholly predictable and, by his standards, wholly uninteresting. You’d think the Ministry could at least have managed to get some mention of his vindication added in, but there was not a whit. As far as Warrick would be concerned, Sirius Black was nothing but a mass murdering escaped convict, dead for the better part of five years.
Sirius didn’t like to admit that this was actually painful to him. After all, Warrick was clearly quite fond of Creon. Wasn’t that enough? It shouldn’t matter to Sirius what the man thought of him. Warrick was never even going to meet him. He pushed the file away in frustration.
But before the night was through, he would find himself in Warrick’s bedroom, standing in the darkened stillness, the silence broken only by the muffled reverberations of the city outside, the gentle rhythmic sound of Warrick’s breathing and the echo of Sirius’s own. A dim yellow glow filtered in between the slats of the blinds from the sodium lights outside, and in the shadows, Sirius could make out the line of Warrick’s profile, his cheek softened by the darkness, as Sirius stood in the doorway, watching him sleep.
Fandoms: CSI/HP
Pairing: Warrick/Sirius
Prompt: #08 Silence
Word Count: 1400
Rating: NC-17 overall
Disclaimer: Me no own; you no poo sue.
Series Summary: When a Muggle-killing wizard sets up shop in Vegas, the hunt to find him is bound to make for some strange bedfellows.
Author's Notes: Written for 100_situations. One ongoing story, not a series of drabbles. Set postwar in the Potterverse, circa 3rd season CSI (around 2001, for anyone who’s counting). Crackishness, AU, slash. Previous parts/ prompt table here.
Curled comfortably on the floor of Warrick’s apartment, Sirius lay with his chin on his paws and tried to remember that he was supposed to answer to the name “Creon.” It wasn’t that he minded the name. He was certain that Muggles could have come up with much worse. Creon was a vast improvement on “Big Guy” which Sirius had feared would stick after Nick had begun using it. In all likelihood, Nick would probably call him that forever, but at least not everyone would.
Lying on the couch nearby was Warrick. Warrick was now Creon’s human, an arrangement which suited Sirius just fine. Made his job a world easier, in fact. In the week since Warrick had woken up in hospital, Sirius had spent only minutes away from his side. He had scarcely let the man out of his sight and Warrick, far from objecting, encouraged him.
Sirius didn’t know exactly what Warrick remembered from the night of his “accident” but the young CSI hadn’t needed anyone to tell him that Sirius-- that Creon-- had saved his life. From the moment he awoke, his hand resting on Sirius’s head, he had known. So Sirius-- Creon-- had slipped into his role as “Warrick’s dog” without complaint on anyone’s part (save for a few nurses whose sensibilities he seemed to offend by his mere presence, but as he and Warrick were no longer in their sterile and astringent domain, Sirius put the matter out of his mind.)
When you came right down to it, Sirius figured, he was actually pretty lucky. Las Vegas had a lot of criminalists. Any one of them could have been assigned to that first scene with that poor Muggle girl, thus becoming the next key target in this twisted pattern of killings. Sirius could have been stuck protecting anyone-- he could have been stuck shadowing Conrad Eckley, for pity's sake! (Sirius had seen the dayshift supervisor on only a few occasions, but that was quite enough to make him count his blessings, such as they were).
But Warrick, Sirius liked. Oh, he didn’t know much about dogs, that was true. Not like Nick (whom Warrick had in fact phoned on a few occasions to ask the simplest of canine-related questions), but since Sirius wasn’t really a dog, he supposed that didn’t matter much in the end. And anyway, if he really admitted it to himself, it felt absolutely brilliant lying here in the quiet of Warrick’s living room, feeling a companionable proximity with this clever young man, and suffering no pressure at all to say anything.
For the first time in what felt like a life’s age, there was no one calling on Sirius to explain his very existence. There was, in fact, no need to break the silence at all.
Warrick turned a page in the file he was reading. It was a copy of Grissom’s report on the accident scene and the recovered car. Grissom and Nick had processed both while Warrick was in hospital. Lying open on the coffee table nearby was the file on the original Washington Court case as well as the Scotland Yard file on Sirius himself. Grissom had sent these over at Warrick’s request, and even though he was still on medical leave, Warrick was wasting no time in pouring over all of them.
Sirius didn’t need a file to tell him that the “accident” at the drainage canal had really been an attempt on Warrick’s life. He already knew that, even if the Muggles never would. What he didn’t know was whether the killer had been aware of his target’s bodyguard when he (or she) summoned that lightning strike. If it really was Snape behind these killings, as Harry so strongly suspected, it would be just like the man to call Sirius out with a blatant attempt on his charge’s life-- not because he would have expected to succeed right under Sirius’s nose, but just to force his hand. And if it wasn’t....
Well, it was a fair guess that whoever it was would now know that Sirius was here, even if they hadn’t before. How that might affect their next move, Sirius could only guess. What he needed was to find out what the Muggles had learned so far and what they were making of the puzzle pieces they had. But that was easy enough to manage now.
Hours later, after Warrick was asleep, Sirius resumed his human form, sat down on the sofa, and read the reports. He learned that the abandoned car had been registered to a Sandra Bolton-Chang and that Grissom had ID’ed her as their dead girl off of her prints, but that he and Nick had had no luck identifying two sets of unknowns they’d lifted from the car as well. The registration, though it indeed listed her address as 1307 Washington Court, had expired two years ago, which Sirius suspected was the time that Ms. Bolton-Chang had first taken up with wizards.
As Bolton-Chang was apparently her married name, Sirius had a fair guess as to the character of her relationship with the Wizarding world: Sandra meets a nice young wizard, they move into a safely warded Unplottable house, keep a few Muggle conveniences (the car, for instance-- thought it likely bore some sort of magical modifications), start to plan a little family. All very quaint.
And then the missus and her unborn baby turn up dead in their home, the wards apparently removed, or at least frayed threadbare-- which someone had to have done on purpose.
It was a fair guess that whoever had removed the wards was the same person who’d killed her. The dark wizard (or wizards) behind all these deaths had already shown a propensity for this sort of twisted game: dismantle all the checks and safeguards that keep the secrets of the wizarding world from Muggles, then murder each of the Muggles unfortunate to come into contact with the newly-bared traces of magical society.
But all of that still left the question of the husband-- where was he, and did he have something to do with his wife’s death? About him, the file said little, either because Grissom and Nick had turned up dead ends or because they hadn’t done much searching yet. There was only a name: Song Chang.
There were, of course, photographs of the car, the scene, notes on trace evidence, and fingerprints-- all pieces to a puzzle they could barely begin to assemble. And there was one other thing as well. Pictures of a key recovered from the car’s glove box. It was small and brass, and its bow was set with a chunk of green stone, into which had been etched an unmistakable icon: fire. Sirius didn’t need a second glance to know that it must unlock something magical. No Muggle would make a key like that. The mystery was what the key opened and what they would find inside.
Laying aside Grissom’s report then, Sirius passed a cursory glance over the file that bore his own name. He found its contents wholly predictable and, by his standards, wholly uninteresting. You’d think the Ministry could at least have managed to get some mention of his vindication added in, but there was not a whit. As far as Warrick would be concerned, Sirius Black was nothing but a mass murdering escaped convict, dead for the better part of five years.
Sirius didn’t like to admit that this was actually painful to him. After all, Warrick was clearly quite fond of Creon. Wasn’t that enough? It shouldn’t matter to Sirius what the man thought of him. Warrick was never even going to meet him. He pushed the file away in frustration.
But before the night was through, he would find himself in Warrick’s bedroom, standing in the darkened stillness, the silence broken only by the muffled reverberations of the city outside, the gentle rhythmic sound of Warrick’s breathing and the echo of Sirius’s own. A dim yellow glow filtered in between the slats of the blinds from the sodium lights outside, and in the shadows, Sirius could make out the line of Warrick’s profile, his cheek softened by the darkness, as Sirius stood in the doorway, watching him sleep.