Title: Carcharodon Carcharias
Authour: Dorinda
Pairing: gen
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Rating: PG
Summary: Casefic.

***

"Over two hundred stab wounds," Hotch said again, handing over the autopsy report. Gideon squinted briefly at the page in the dim, wavering blue light and turned to hand it to Reid, who made a slim silhouette against the glass wall, sharks twisting and gliding behind him in silent, perfect accord.

"They have any hypothesis on the weapon?" Gideon asked, letting his gaze wander, drifting down Reid's shadow and across the breadth of the exhibit room, the carpet bare but for murky bloodstains lit in pools of amber and blue.

Hotch crouched down by the largest bloodstain, into Gideon's line of vision, frowning at the floor. "Not specifically. Short--about two inches. Narrow at the point, much wider at the base. Double-edged, apparently, with some indication of slight serrations on both sides."

Gideon stared thoughtfully at the line of bloodstains. "How many major wound groupings?"

"Five. Each arm, each leg, and the torso. Intensely ritualistic--each wound grouping has two opposing half-circles, twenty-four wounds each." Hotch tapped out neat, precise rows on the floor. "He took his time."

Gideon let his eyes unfocus, flexed his hands. He imagined that time, all that time, the neat, sharp thrusts, stab by stab, having to work bent over to see better in the eerie blue glow from the tanks. Soft liquid sounds. The light flickering as sharks slip through and cast their momentary shadows. Proceeding carefully, intently. Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three...

"Not a frenzy," Hotch said after a time, into the thoughtful quiet. "Definitely not disorganized."

Forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight. Complete. Good. Another. "You know--" Gideon tipped his head to the side. "Those shapes, I could almost imagine that he'd been bitten by a shark."

Hotch looked up at him, startled. "He didn't have authorization to enter any of the tank access points. Janitorial workers are only issued keys to public areas and offices."

Gideon waved him off. "Not a real shark, course not. But...a re-enactment."

"Is there some significance to the number forty-eight?" Hotch asked, rising in one easy movement. His knees didn't even pop.

"Great whites." Reid's voice was sudden and close behind him. Gideon flinched slightly, reflexively, and smothered the tingle of hypervigilance, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Great whites what?" he said gruffly.

Reid edged into view, the autopsy report dangling unregarded from one hand. "Great white sharks," he said. "Latin name Carcharodon carcharias, meaning 'jagged-toothed one'. They generally have from twenty-four to twenty-six tooth positions in the upper jaw, and from twenty-two to twenty-four positions in the lower jaw. For symmetry's sake, if we say twenty-four top and twenty-four bottom, it makes the perfect great white bite."

"Or bite re-enactment," Hotch said. "Morgan has the shark expert detained for questioning, the one who found the body. I'll go have a talk with him."

His dark suit, dark shoes, dark hair, all melted into the shadows by the doorway and were gone.

"A great white." Gideon looked up at the tanks. "That's what the Unsub was being. A man-eater."

"But that's just it," Reid said earnestly. "It isn't. I mean, not usually. I, I mean, a man-eater."

"There've been great white attacks, though, haven't there?" The sharks were mesmerizing, really. Pure muscle and deadly grace, shining black eyes that swept over you uncaring and were gone.

Reid shifted restlessly in Gideon's peripheral vision. "They're rare. Extremely rare. More people are killed each year by elephants than by sharks. More people are struck by lightning."

He turned at the force in Reid's voice, and faced him. "Would that prevent the Unsub from fixating on the shark attack as a fetish?"

"It would if he were a shark expert," Reid insisted, his eyes wide and intent. "He'd know all this. He'd know that over ninety percent of people attacked by sharks survive. In most cases, the shark only bites once and then backs off." His hair was slipping loose from behind his ears, falling into his eyes; he automatically tucked it back with one thin hand. "Certainly not this repeated, purposeful biting of all the limbs plus the torso. That's not a shark expert--that's someone who saw Jaws."

"What about the number of teeth? He get that from the movies too?"

"If he's the sort of person who fetishizes the shark as the ultimate predator to this extent, he'd surely have a shark jaw, complete with teeth. There's a black market for them. There are legal replicas, too, but I expect he'd find authenticity important."

Gideon considered this. "And he'd know it inside and out. Keep it on his wall where he can see it every day, count every tooth, know every curve. Until it feels like it could fit right inside his own mouth."

Reid nodded.

Gideon saw it now, the fog clearing, the pieces shifting and falling right into place. A repeat patron, a man who haunts the shark exhibits in particular. Not a scientist who sees them as the animals they are, but an amateur who sees them as totems, elemental forces to carry his own inadequacies and urges, monstrous vehicles for his own fulfillment. He visits often, often enough to be recognizable--maybe the staff even joke among themselves about Shark Guy, the neat, quiet, obsessed man who always stands before the glowing tank walls as if at an altar. And one night, last night, a janitor comes in after closing to vacuum and finds him still there. He moves to shoo him out--surely he will go obediently, he's only Shark Guy--and there's a sudden blitz strike, quick restraints. A cherished tooth has been mounted on a handle. The rest of the night is a fantasy realized at last, a steady orgy of predation, a precise pattern. The savor of perfect bites.

The picture faded, and he was looking at the tanks again, pondering the long, silvery sweep of the sharks as they explored their home.

"He thought he was like them," he said.

At his shoulder, Reid looked up as well, his profile a study in gentle awe. Passing sharks dappled his face with touches of shadow, splashes of light.

"He thought they were like him," Reid said. "But they aren't."

***