(no subject)
What we learned as children, that one plus one equals two, we know to be false. One plus one equals one. We even have a word for when you plus another equals one. That word is love.
Love.
Funny thing.
("The dog must have took a bullet for the kid. Then took the shooter's finger off. Anyone ever love you that much?")
It was what he had asked Dani Reese on their first case. And he knew the answer.
He did. He had gotten into a car with Roman Nebikov, the man who was the final linchpin in discovering why Charlie Crews had served twelve years in prison for a crime he did not commit, and several heavily armed men with no expectations of getting out of it alive to get Dani Reese out of it. Because he would gladly have taken a bullet for her, and, had it come down to it, bitten off one of Nebikov's fingers.
Fortunately for Crews, it hadn't.
He had very simply crushed Nebikov's windpipe, and subsequently been let go. Not a very zen finale to things, but what could he say? Roman Nebikov was the last part of the puzzle that had, over those twelve years he'd spent behind bars, caused his friends and loved ones to slip through his fingers and had put him back in a world to which he was a stranger.
Coming back home, it felt like he was walking under water. There was a faint buzz in his ears as though there was too much lack of noise pressing into his skull. The only noise in the house was the sound of his steps as he made his way in, headed straight for the kitchen.
Reaching absentmindedly into the fruit bowl that was ever present on the small island in the kitchen, he felt paper on his palm instead of fruit. Picking the paper neatly from its resting place, he saw, in a scrawl that he recognized to be Ted's, the words, 'Went to Spain.' As a small smile made itself present on his features, Crews put the paper back where he had found it, picking out an apple and running it under the kitchen tap.
As the cool water ran over his fingers and around the apple in his hand, he used his dry hand to pull out one of the smaller knives from a set, then proceeding to stick the apple with the point.
By the time he walked out through the back door towards the pool, the hilt of the knife was caught firmly between the pointer and middle finger of his left hand, there were a set of earbuds dangling about his neck, and he was, all in all, still in something of a daze.
This was probably why the fact that an island greeted him instead of the normal view failed to baffle him as much as it should.
Feeling the soles of his shoes sink into the sand, his brow furrowed and he looked down, pulling the knife from the apple and beginning to cut himself a slice.
(He'd only had this vivid a hallucination once before, and that had been after he'd been shot. He'd been back in his little cell at Pelican Bay State Penitentiary, and Tins had been leaning in the doorway, eying Crews and the growing spot of blood on his chest.
"Still hurts, don't it?" Tins had said, "You would think here, it doesn't, but it does. That's just messed up."
He still hadn't sorted everything out yet. Maybe that was what this meant.
Maybe he was free.)
Still, he reasoned, no harm in indulging himself when a vision like this came along. Sitting down on the sand, he slowly laid back, apple balanced on his chest, knife sticking out of it straight towards the sky. Once he was sure it wouldn't roll off, he spread his arms out to either side of him, and, mulling over what had happened, allowed himself one small, almost rueful smile.
[ ooc: First person to find him gets to explain things; following that, Crews will still be found on the beach, but a little more up to speed. ]
Love.
Funny thing.
("The dog must have took a bullet for the kid. Then took the shooter's finger off. Anyone ever love you that much?")
It was what he had asked Dani Reese on their first case. And he knew the answer.
He did. He had gotten into a car with Roman Nebikov, the man who was the final linchpin in discovering why Charlie Crews had served twelve years in prison for a crime he did not commit, and several heavily armed men with no expectations of getting out of it alive to get Dani Reese out of it. Because he would gladly have taken a bullet for her, and, had it come down to it, bitten off one of Nebikov's fingers.
Fortunately for Crews, it hadn't.
He had very simply crushed Nebikov's windpipe, and subsequently been let go. Not a very zen finale to things, but what could he say? Roman Nebikov was the last part of the puzzle that had, over those twelve years he'd spent behind bars, caused his friends and loved ones to slip through his fingers and had put him back in a world to which he was a stranger.
Coming back home, it felt like he was walking under water. There was a faint buzz in his ears as though there was too much lack of noise pressing into his skull. The only noise in the house was the sound of his steps as he made his way in, headed straight for the kitchen.
Reaching absentmindedly into the fruit bowl that was ever present on the small island in the kitchen, he felt paper on his palm instead of fruit. Picking the paper neatly from its resting place, he saw, in a scrawl that he recognized to be Ted's, the words, 'Went to Spain.' As a small smile made itself present on his features, Crews put the paper back where he had found it, picking out an apple and running it under the kitchen tap.
As the cool water ran over his fingers and around the apple in his hand, he used his dry hand to pull out one of the smaller knives from a set, then proceeding to stick the apple with the point.
By the time he walked out through the back door towards the pool, the hilt of the knife was caught firmly between the pointer and middle finger of his left hand, there were a set of earbuds dangling about his neck, and he was, all in all, still in something of a daze.
This was probably why the fact that an island greeted him instead of the normal view failed to baffle him as much as it should.
Feeling the soles of his shoes sink into the sand, his brow furrowed and he looked down, pulling the knife from the apple and beginning to cut himself a slice.
(He'd only had this vivid a hallucination once before, and that had been after he'd been shot. He'd been back in his little cell at Pelican Bay State Penitentiary, and Tins had been leaning in the doorway, eying Crews and the growing spot of blood on his chest.
"Still hurts, don't it?" Tins had said, "You would think here, it doesn't, but it does. That's just messed up."
He still hadn't sorted everything out yet. Maybe that was what this meant.
Maybe he was free.)
Still, he reasoned, no harm in indulging himself when a vision like this came along. Sitting down on the sand, he slowly laid back, apple balanced on his chest, knife sticking out of it straight towards the sky. Once he was sure it wouldn't roll off, he spread his arms out to either side of him, and, mulling over what had happened, allowed himself one small, almost rueful smile.
[ ooc: First person to find him gets to explain things; following that, Crews will still be found on the beach, but a little more up to speed. ]