Title: Cigarettes
By: Emily
Pairing: gen
Rating: PG
A/N: Hope no one minds that this isn't really a Cath/Sara 'ship piece. More a Sara-observing-people-thing. Goes for the Rewind Challenge, I rewound to Vices. Good subject, that.
Summary: She sees things in those two.

***


This place is vice city

Sara ponders the phrase, "Vice City", and then just the word. Vice. See also: immorality, ungoodness (that's a word?), impurity, and criminality. She's always been a black-and-white girl; everything is right or wrong for her. She sees very few shades of grey. And she's worked in a criminalistics bureau for a long time and she's seen criminal activity and how a criminals mind works and what sick acts they are capable of, and it's not just buying a pack of smokes when you've already quit.

Which is what Sara does. And Catherine. And Warrick. They all smoke and it means different things to each of them. When she sees Catherine with the cigarette between her fingers it makes her think of angles and smoke and despair and everything overwhelming you. She thinks of raising a kid and seeing dead people every day and hoping the two lives never connect. She sees bags under her eyes and more makeup then is really there. She sees pain and history and ragged fingernails.

With Warrick it's a different story. She sees smoky eyes and smoky bars and smoky music. She sees a quiet sensuality that she never ever notices otherwise and a fluidity to his movements. She sees how much he hides and how hard he tries to keep everything going. She sees a silent struggle and a deafening resolution as he flicks the ash away before it burns completely down. Warrick's always been a man of principle.

Sara can't help but wonder what people see when they look at her with a cigarette, her silhouette in the shadows.

***