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Title: Twenty-One Breaths (3/3)
Author: me
Fandom/Pairing: CSI - Nick/Greg
Rating: R for violent crime
Summary: A bad week - a bad case - turns decidedly worse.
A/N: I put a rush order on this fic because I think that the next new episode (Fannysmackin') will deal with similar issues (one can only hope that slashy shipping will be involved ♥), and I want to thank Fire SO MUCH for her quickquickQUICK beta-ing. She is awesome beyond words and deserves to be praised around the world.
Disclaimer: CSI is not mine. It belongs to Jerry Bruckheimer and his wonderful crew. I just borrow.
...
Part 1 ~ Part 2
20.
The evening air felt too hot on Nick’s cheeks. He forced himself to slow down, to measure his steps across the lot to the lab. His knees felt shakier than ever, as if they’d been pulled apart and reattached incorrectly, and he might as well have been running for the speed of his heart against his ribs.
Breathe. But he’d been doing that ever since that morning, and he had a feeling it would make no difference now either.
He had to go in. He just had to walk in through those doors, find Catherine, and get to work. Just as he had every other night. There was plenty to do; he’d have no time to think about… anything. Just the case.
Nick’s feet took him willingly enough across the lot and through the lab’s front doors, and then familiarity hit him, beeps and chatter, the muffled wump of shots through the open door to ballistics down the hall. Archie strode briskly past him, giving him a harried smile, and Nick’s chest loosened.
This… He knew this place, these people. There were a lot of them, and somehow he’d forgotten that. The lab was barely organized chaos half the time, and Nick could very well lose himself in it, work alone tonight and not worry about who he might have to see.
His professionalism chose that moment to speak up as well, and Nick felt utterly foolish for losing sight of it. There was no place for his mistakes here. God knew he’d already given enough time to them that morning. Nick felt his neck flushing and lengthened his stride, avoiding the locker room entirely and making for Catherine’s office.
He managed to ignore the DNA lab until he was nearly on top of it, and then he made another mistake and looked inside. He only had an instant to be relieved at how empty it was before Sara rounded the corner ahead of him, with Greg just behind her.
It didn’t matter that Greg hadn’t seen him yet; the taste of his mouth sprang to Nick’s tongue as if it were fresh. He halted abruptly, stumbling, nearly tripping a ballistics tech coming down the hall. His throat closed and he couldn’t get enough air.
At that precise moment, Greg looked up and saw him.
Nick couldn’t think. The image of Greg’s slack mouth and heaving chest rose unbidden, wiping everything else out. He swallowed hard, staring at the younger man, tasting and smelling and feeling him all over again.
Oh God.
Nick turned and hurried back down the hall, not giving himself time to register the expression on Greg’s face. Not giving himself time to do much of anything but run. He found Grissom’s office and let himself in, shutting the door behind him. His supervisor glanced up from his desk, a slight frown on his face.
“Nick?” Grissom’s frown deepened. He set the criminal profiles he’d been studying down on his desk and leaned forward. “Are you alright?”
“I—” No. He wasn’t alright, he hadn’t been this far from alright in a long time, except for that very morning when he… when he’d… “I need to ask you for the night off.”
Grissom’s eyebrows shot up. “You came all the way into work just to ask for the night off?”
Nick shook his head, feeling as if his very bones were jittering. “No, I… I just think I may be getting sick, that’s all.”
Grissom’s attention flicked toward the door behind Nick for an instant. “I saw you walk past a minute ago. You looked alright to me.”
Nick shut his eyes, too unsettled to care that he was lying to Grissom. But it wasn’t really a lie. He honestly didn’t think he could function in the lab today. “It’s been such a long couple of weeks,” he said, as steadily as he could. “I just think it’s all catching up to me.”
That wasn’t a lie either, but he knew his interpretation of events was nowhere near the one he was asking the other man to believe. He’d gotten away from himself—No, he had let it all steamroll right over him earlier, and now he couldn’t think where he could stand, where there was stable enough ground to sit and figure everything out.
Grissom nodded, but his brows were knit together. He looked Nick over critically. “Well, it certainly is understandable,” he said at last. “Are you feeling sick?”
Nick looked away. “I don’t… feel myself tonight.”
Grissom nodded again, once. “Alright. Catherine’s got her end covered, as far as I know. I’ll just send her Warrick if she needs anyone.”
Still, he scrutinized Nick, absorbing information. Nick stared back. If Grissom kept this up, he wouldn’t even need to pretend to be unwell anymore.
At last, the older man sat back. “Go home, Nicky. It has been a rough week.”
Nick nodded, feeling weak in the vicinity of his knees again. He was about to turn for the door, but Grissom’s voice stopped him.
“Nick? Greg was looking for you earlier.”
Too keen; words slowly spaced for maximum effect. Nick knew he’d paled by the way Grissom’s brow creased. Another long second ticked by, and that strange sorrow crawled over the older man’s face. “Nicky, have you talked to him since he got back?”
“Grissom,” Nick tried, hating the fragility of his voice. He shut his eyes and opened them again. “I don’t…”
But there was nothing else waiting. He faltered, and Grissom’s eyes widened, almost boyish in their intensity. “Nick, tell me what’s wrong,” he said in a quiet voice.
Oh, he couldn’t stay here, he could feel his control slipping. “Grissom, I can’t. Not now.”
His supervisor just looked at him somewhat sadly. Confusion, something he rarely saw on the man’s face. Nick nodded shakily, then turned, grasped the doorknob, and let himself out. He didn’t even look back down the hallway toward the DNA lab, instead making for the front of the building again. He knew that if Grissom could stare through solid walls, he would have been watching him the entire way.
21.
His coffee had gone cold some time ago. Not that it had been very hot to begin with, but it smelled nice, and Nick cupped the mug close to himself and stared out the window at the slowly filling parking lot. Families coming in for a late dinner, people he recognized from the day shift hurrying in to pick up take out before heading home. Nick edged his mug around in a circle, watching the condensation fade off the table top.
Frank’s was crowded tonight, but it made Nick feel sheltered somehow, sitting at a small corner table nursing a cup of coffee he had no intention of drinking. Another one of his “homes,” filled with comforting smells and the easy drone of voices. He knew he could sit here for as long as he wanted and think, and he wouldn’t be asked to leave.
Ah, the perks of being a regular.
But no matter how comfortable the place was or how long he sat at that table, it didn’t lessen the problem building inexorably in front of him.
How was he ever going to function at work now? He didn’t want to have the obligatory chat to explain his actions, though now he supposed he would have to have two of them: one with Grissom, and one with Greg. Just the thought of those conversations was thick and oppressive, a massive hurdle to scramble over. He needed time to think on his own first, to figure out some sort of contingency plan.
But a contingency plan seemed so trivial next to the real dilemma: the shift in his emotions awed him, a roiling, overwhelming knot that made sense and yet did not. He couldn’t make a plan about how to work in the same space as Greg; he couldn’t even sort out where his feelings began and ended yet.
Neither could Nick pinpoint the exact shift, and he suspected – a thought that made him feel rather ill – that there hadn’t been one. It was much too muddled to be so clear-cut; no, this spoke of the passage of time, of slow development. Something he hadn’t even recognized for what it was until that morning.
Somehow, during all of his not-thinking-about-it, Nick had thought about it anyway. His brain had gone on ahead, perhaps during those spans of dreamless sleep, had put it all into the correct order, and had neglected to tell him how his perceptions concerning Greg Sanders had changed.
But when had he stopped thinking of Greg as “the kid” and started thinking of him as…
Nick drew a sharp breath.
Now it was a new kind of box, one he had trapped himself inside of, and Greg outside.
He grimaced. “Nice snare to set for yourself, Stokes.”
The waitress arrived with a fresh pot of coffee, and Nick asked for another mug. He waited while she poured, watching the night grow darker outside.
He couldn’t stay out of the lab forever. He didn’t want to, anyway. It was his job, one he loved, despite the pitfalls and the occasional blows to his complacency. Nick sighed. If only they didn’t have to strike so hard, and so swiftly. If only they didn’t constantly have the potential to take so much away from him.
But that which might be lost was that which was risked. Nick put so much into his work that he couldn’t really be surprised at the enormous toll that threatened. Only now it was much more horrifying because it wasn’t just himself he risked losing anymore.
He knew the same question of risk met Greg every night that he got up to come to work. But it didn’t make him feel any better about it.
Was this what it was like? Nick knew in that instant that he was about to register the staggering possibility of loss concerning the others as well. His friends, people who were almost his family. He just hadn’t managed to put it into context before, and now he knew he could never avoid it again.
And none of this was helping him deal with the issue of working alongside Greg, Nick thought, frustrated.
He was in the midst of glaring into his fresh cup of coffee when the sound of a shuffling step very close to him made him turn. Greg stood a few feet away, looking down at him. His hand rested on the handle of his cane.
“Hey,” Greg said. Nick looked down at his cup and then up again in one movement. Greg’s hair was tousled as usual, a bit on the shaggier side. His face was open, mouth twitched upward as it often was, but it looked different to Nick, knowing he’d kissed that mouth, tasted inside, been close enough to smell Greg’s cologne and sweat. The memory of a hand squeezing the nape of his neck, a moan he could feel and a mouth opening readily beneath his, panged in Nick’s chest. He dragged his eyes away.
“Hey.”
Greg hovered there beside him, not a hand’s reach from him. “Mind if I sit?”
Nick shook his head and Greg came even closer, edging around to the opposite chair. A spasm crossed his features; the younger man winced, folding himself into the chair with some difficulty, left leg coming to rest cocked out toward the window.
Nick couldn't help himself. "You alright?"
Greg turned a withering stare on him. "You pushed me into the wall."
Nick felt emptiness to rival whatever had come before. Was everything he did twisted when it involved Greg? He looked down at his coffee. "I'm sorry, Greg."
So inadequate.
Greg looked at him for a long time; Nick could feel his eyes. Then there was a soft snort. He looked up and saw that Greg's lips were faintly quirked. His eyes flicked up and down over Nick's face. "It's okay, Nick. It was the wrong side."
His hand hovered over his right hip and Nick felt the humor like a breath of air. He looked away, feeling his own mouth twitch.
"Good to know.”
Greg made a sound of agreement, and then the silence fell again. Nick flinched, glad he was looking at his drink instead of at the other man.
“How’s your leg?” he asked finally.
Greg’s eyebrows rose and he glanced down at his left side. “Metal pins.”
“What?”
Another smile cut across the younger man’s face. “It has metal pins in it now.”
Nick couldn’t summon the humor this time, and just looked back at his coworker. Greg’s demeanor sobered. “It hurts. Vicodin cocktail’s wearing me out. I feel nauseated half the time. And I get to sit like this.”
He gestured at the strange angle of his leg with one hand. Nick looked for the bruising where his wrist was visible beneath the end of his sleeve, but could see nothing except pale skin.
“Sounds like fun,” he murmured. Greg’s eyes sparked.
“Oh, it is.” He gazed out the window. Nick saw his throat work as he swallowed. For a second he wondered about the stitches in Greg’s scalp, if he’d had to shave the back of his head for them. He couldn’t tell from where he sat. Greg turned and caught him looking. His eyes flicked over Nick’s face. “About last night.”
“What?” But Nick knew what he was talking about. It was all over his face.
Greg shrugged, back to his jovial self again. The shift was amazing. “Hey, your night is my day,” he offered playfully.
“This morning,” Nick corrected on a sigh. He hadn’t wanted to be here yet. Not for a few days at least. But there was no getting away from it now, not with Greg sitting there, eyes begging for some sense of understanding.
“I don’t…” He shook his head. “I can’t really explain it easily, Greg.”
“I think I’d be disappointed if you did,” came the response. Nick smiled fleetingly at his coffee.
“I can’t even sort it out for myself yet,” he muttered.
“Well,” Greg said after a moment, “you kissed me.”
Nick grimaced at him. “Yeah. I remember that part, Greg.”
“So do I.” There was something else in his tone this time, something thicker, less controlled. Greg inhaled deeply and let it out. “So.”
“So.”
They sat for several seconds, just looking at each other. Finally, Nick decided to take a stab at it. “I needed to know that you were still there.”
Greg looked puzzled. “I was standing right in front of you.”
“Still alive,” Nick said carefully, noting the way the other man stiffened. Something quickened in his expression.
“Then you weren’t… angry at me.”
Nick shook his head, snorting softly. “Water under the bridge, man.”
Greg nodded, a little too quick. “I thought… Oh, I don’t know what I thought.”
Nick shuddered, still reeling from the after effects of voicing it aloud. He knew there was more to say, that he should try to reconcile the details with Greg, but he had stretched himself too much in the last two days, and he couldn’t summon the energy to ponder anything except how strange it felt to be having this conversation at all.
Greg’s pensiveness was palpable and Nick waited, wondering what would come next. Just having the other man near him was doing odd things to his self-awareness. He could feel each of Greg’s breaths as if he were the one breathing them. When had he become so conscious of it?
At last Greg spoke again, gently. “Why didn’t you come to see me? In the hospital.”
Nick stirred. “I was there,” he managed. Greg’s lips pressed together and then parted. He inclined his head.
“You know what I mean.”
Nick gripped his mug in both hands. This was the part he had hidden from, the one that was still tangled up. But it all centered around one truth which was very, very hard to face.
"I thought you were going to die."
Greg's body stilled and he stared straight at Nick. For once – maybe because there were no strings, no loopholes in his words this time – Nick had no trouble meeting his eyes. "I thought it was going to happen right there, and I was going to hold you while your life went right out of your body. It would happen in my arms. Do you— Do you even see—"
There really weren't any words to convey it. Nick didn't deal with the living; that was depressing in and of itself, that he barely had the fortitude to imagine facing such a horrible scenario before this one. He’d held an injured person before, certainly. And he could find a person from a spot of sweat, name a criminal from the way his left eye twitched. But he couldn't hold onto a life? Couldn't hold onto Greg's life.
He’d crawled out of the abyss once himself, but now he could see too plainly that that had also been out of his control.
Greg was family, Greg was... more than family. And Nick finally knew – had known, listening to the air rushing through Greg’s throat and feeling the sickening softness of battered flesh under his fingers – that he didn't have the power to save that or to protect it, to hold onto it. It wasn't a test tube to study or a DNA strand to decode. It was life and a personality, memories braided into a unique, living, breathing body, as fragile as the sunlight or the wind. The instant it was gone, it was irretrievable, vanished forever. A spark, smothered.
A hundred other sparks in love with that one spark, left alone to burn in the darkness.
Nick shut his eyes.
"You think you're the only one who's felt that?"
He found Greg staring hard at him. Brown eyes wide and focused, full of vibrancy. He'd seen them without that vitality and the difference was startling all over again, painful in a place too deep to dig out or even touch.
Greg’s head shook weakly. “I’ve seen what happens on this job. Grissom and Warrick and… Sara…” His shoulders hunched helplessly. “I felt it when Lindsey was taken, and Catherine was nearly in pieces, and Brass, when Brass was shot, I knew all about helplessness, Nick, because you’re right, there’s nothing you can do but wait. They take it right out of your hands. And then, you… You, Nick…”
He looked up at Nick sharply, but did not say any more. Nick watched him struggle and realized with a start that he couldn’t say any more. Greg’s eyes hollowed painfully, and Nick saw the box again, this time with himself in it, and understood.
“I’ve never felt so helpless,” Greg whispered. “So much at another person’s whim. I mean, he died. And that still didn’t fix it. You were still down there.”
“Did you…” He had to ask. “Did you feel like…” Nick gestured between the two of them, and for a moment he was afraid he’d have to explain. But awareness flickered into Greg’s eyes. He shook his head.
“No. Not like this. Not then. But it didn’t matter.”
No, it didn’t. Nick cleared his throat. He had more to say now, the elusive words had arrived at last. And for the first time, he knew what he wanted without the heaviness of his confusion resting on top. But it would still be difficult to articulate.
Everything with Greg was.
He gestured at nothing, just a small sweep of the table, the restaurant, and the world. "I've always thought of us as a family. Gris and Catherine, they're like the parents, and Sara and Rick and you and me..."
"The kids," Greg finished.
Nick looked down and summoned his thoughts. "I don't want to think like that anymore."
Greg's gaze was riveting. No longer searching, but... Nick exhaled and just looked back, through eight years to a moment when he hadn't known this man, and couldn't imagine what it had been like.
Greg's hand moved, slid across the table. Hesitated for the briefest of instances, and then covered Nick's where it rested on the tabletop.
“Sara said something to me once, right after my first autopsy.” Greg’s voice was low, reflective. His thumb traced over the back of Nick’s hand. “Doc Robbins told me we were only flesh, a body and parts. Not in so many words, but… Then Sara said, ‘It’s what you do with it that counts.’”
He looked up slowly, and Nick felt a strange flutter in his chest. The moment stretched, his hand cupped there under Greg’s, the scent of cooling coffee teasing at his senses.
"Do you want to come over?" Greg asked simply. Softly.
Nick swallowed. Greg's hand was warm. He'd never registered warmth in this way, through this touch. "Won't that hurt you?"
Greg shrugged, smiling a little half-smirk. "We'll manage. We're young and innovative."
This time Nick did laugh. It was small, but it was still a laugh. Greg's hand tightened around his.
"Just... slow. Okay?"
Nick felt his cheeks redden. "You know, you've gotten pretty wise lately."
Greg grinned. "Had a good teacher."
Nick couldn’t have agreed less. But he didn’t say it. He turned his hand over, meeting Greg’s, palm to palm. Fingers tensed around his.
Unexpectedly, Greg pointed at his coffee. “You really going to drink that?”
Nick let out a breath. “No.” He pushed the mug away. Greg’s eyes gleamed in amusement. He pulled his hand away and rose haltingly, leaning on his cane. Nick got up as well, concerned, but Greg straightened without incident and rolled his eyes. “Can’t quite get the hang of this thing.”
Nick busied himself with turning out quarters and bills from his pockets, piling them next to the still-full mug. Greg waited silently, and then edged through the narrow space between their table and the next. Nick let him go by and followed closely, heart beginning to beat faster.
They were almost to the door, almost out into the liminal light of dusk and the wind off the desert, when Greg turned back.
"So... Brass."
"What about him?"
"Does that make Brass some sort of grouchy, jaded uncle?"
Nick laughed, feeling the last of the weight lift. "You know, Greggo? That's absolutely perfect."
~end~
...
...
...
Thanks for reading! ^_^
Author: me
Fandom/Pairing: CSI - Nick/Greg
Rating: R for violent crime
Summary: A bad week - a bad case - turns decidedly worse.
A/N: I put a rush order on this fic because I think that the next new episode (Fannysmackin') will deal with similar issues (one can only hope that slashy shipping will be involved ♥), and I want to thank Fire SO MUCH for her quickquickQUICK beta-ing. She is awesome beyond words and deserves to be praised around the world.
Disclaimer: CSI is not mine. It belongs to Jerry Bruckheimer and his wonderful crew. I just borrow.
...
Part 1 ~ Part 2
20.
The evening air felt too hot on Nick’s cheeks. He forced himself to slow down, to measure his steps across the lot to the lab. His knees felt shakier than ever, as if they’d been pulled apart and reattached incorrectly, and he might as well have been running for the speed of his heart against his ribs.
Breathe. But he’d been doing that ever since that morning, and he had a feeling it would make no difference now either.
He had to go in. He just had to walk in through those doors, find Catherine, and get to work. Just as he had every other night. There was plenty to do; he’d have no time to think about… anything. Just the case.
Nick’s feet took him willingly enough across the lot and through the lab’s front doors, and then familiarity hit him, beeps and chatter, the muffled wump of shots through the open door to ballistics down the hall. Archie strode briskly past him, giving him a harried smile, and Nick’s chest loosened.
This… He knew this place, these people. There were a lot of them, and somehow he’d forgotten that. The lab was barely organized chaos half the time, and Nick could very well lose himself in it, work alone tonight and not worry about who he might have to see.
His professionalism chose that moment to speak up as well, and Nick felt utterly foolish for losing sight of it. There was no place for his mistakes here. God knew he’d already given enough time to them that morning. Nick felt his neck flushing and lengthened his stride, avoiding the locker room entirely and making for Catherine’s office.
He managed to ignore the DNA lab until he was nearly on top of it, and then he made another mistake and looked inside. He only had an instant to be relieved at how empty it was before Sara rounded the corner ahead of him, with Greg just behind her.
It didn’t matter that Greg hadn’t seen him yet; the taste of his mouth sprang to Nick’s tongue as if it were fresh. He halted abruptly, stumbling, nearly tripping a ballistics tech coming down the hall. His throat closed and he couldn’t get enough air.
At that precise moment, Greg looked up and saw him.
Nick couldn’t think. The image of Greg’s slack mouth and heaving chest rose unbidden, wiping everything else out. He swallowed hard, staring at the younger man, tasting and smelling and feeling him all over again.
Oh God.
Nick turned and hurried back down the hall, not giving himself time to register the expression on Greg’s face. Not giving himself time to do much of anything but run. He found Grissom’s office and let himself in, shutting the door behind him. His supervisor glanced up from his desk, a slight frown on his face.
“Nick?” Grissom’s frown deepened. He set the criminal profiles he’d been studying down on his desk and leaned forward. “Are you alright?”
“I—” No. He wasn’t alright, he hadn’t been this far from alright in a long time, except for that very morning when he… when he’d… “I need to ask you for the night off.”
Grissom’s eyebrows shot up. “You came all the way into work just to ask for the night off?”
Nick shook his head, feeling as if his very bones were jittering. “No, I… I just think I may be getting sick, that’s all.”
Grissom’s attention flicked toward the door behind Nick for an instant. “I saw you walk past a minute ago. You looked alright to me.”
Nick shut his eyes, too unsettled to care that he was lying to Grissom. But it wasn’t really a lie. He honestly didn’t think he could function in the lab today. “It’s been such a long couple of weeks,” he said, as steadily as he could. “I just think it’s all catching up to me.”
That wasn’t a lie either, but he knew his interpretation of events was nowhere near the one he was asking the other man to believe. He’d gotten away from himself—No, he had let it all steamroll right over him earlier, and now he couldn’t think where he could stand, where there was stable enough ground to sit and figure everything out.
Grissom nodded, but his brows were knit together. He looked Nick over critically. “Well, it certainly is understandable,” he said at last. “Are you feeling sick?”
Nick looked away. “I don’t… feel myself tonight.”
Grissom nodded again, once. “Alright. Catherine’s got her end covered, as far as I know. I’ll just send her Warrick if she needs anyone.”
Still, he scrutinized Nick, absorbing information. Nick stared back. If Grissom kept this up, he wouldn’t even need to pretend to be unwell anymore.
At last, the older man sat back. “Go home, Nicky. It has been a rough week.”
Nick nodded, feeling weak in the vicinity of his knees again. He was about to turn for the door, but Grissom’s voice stopped him.
“Nick? Greg was looking for you earlier.”
Too keen; words slowly spaced for maximum effect. Nick knew he’d paled by the way Grissom’s brow creased. Another long second ticked by, and that strange sorrow crawled over the older man’s face. “Nicky, have you talked to him since he got back?”
“Grissom,” Nick tried, hating the fragility of his voice. He shut his eyes and opened them again. “I don’t…”
But there was nothing else waiting. He faltered, and Grissom’s eyes widened, almost boyish in their intensity. “Nick, tell me what’s wrong,” he said in a quiet voice.
Oh, he couldn’t stay here, he could feel his control slipping. “Grissom, I can’t. Not now.”
His supervisor just looked at him somewhat sadly. Confusion, something he rarely saw on the man’s face. Nick nodded shakily, then turned, grasped the doorknob, and let himself out. He didn’t even look back down the hallway toward the DNA lab, instead making for the front of the building again. He knew that if Grissom could stare through solid walls, he would have been watching him the entire way.
21.
His coffee had gone cold some time ago. Not that it had been very hot to begin with, but it smelled nice, and Nick cupped the mug close to himself and stared out the window at the slowly filling parking lot. Families coming in for a late dinner, people he recognized from the day shift hurrying in to pick up take out before heading home. Nick edged his mug around in a circle, watching the condensation fade off the table top.
Frank’s was crowded tonight, but it made Nick feel sheltered somehow, sitting at a small corner table nursing a cup of coffee he had no intention of drinking. Another one of his “homes,” filled with comforting smells and the easy drone of voices. He knew he could sit here for as long as he wanted and think, and he wouldn’t be asked to leave.
Ah, the perks of being a regular.
But no matter how comfortable the place was or how long he sat at that table, it didn’t lessen the problem building inexorably in front of him.
How was he ever going to function at work now? He didn’t want to have the obligatory chat to explain his actions, though now he supposed he would have to have two of them: one with Grissom, and one with Greg. Just the thought of those conversations was thick and oppressive, a massive hurdle to scramble over. He needed time to think on his own first, to figure out some sort of contingency plan.
But a contingency plan seemed so trivial next to the real dilemma: the shift in his emotions awed him, a roiling, overwhelming knot that made sense and yet did not. He couldn’t make a plan about how to work in the same space as Greg; he couldn’t even sort out where his feelings began and ended yet.
Neither could Nick pinpoint the exact shift, and he suspected – a thought that made him feel rather ill – that there hadn’t been one. It was much too muddled to be so clear-cut; no, this spoke of the passage of time, of slow development. Something he hadn’t even recognized for what it was until that morning.
Somehow, during all of his not-thinking-about-it, Nick had thought about it anyway. His brain had gone on ahead, perhaps during those spans of dreamless sleep, had put it all into the correct order, and had neglected to tell him how his perceptions concerning Greg Sanders had changed.
But when had he stopped thinking of Greg as “the kid” and started thinking of him as…
Nick drew a sharp breath.
Now it was a new kind of box, one he had trapped himself inside of, and Greg outside.
He grimaced. “Nice snare to set for yourself, Stokes.”
The waitress arrived with a fresh pot of coffee, and Nick asked for another mug. He waited while she poured, watching the night grow darker outside.
He couldn’t stay out of the lab forever. He didn’t want to, anyway. It was his job, one he loved, despite the pitfalls and the occasional blows to his complacency. Nick sighed. If only they didn’t have to strike so hard, and so swiftly. If only they didn’t constantly have the potential to take so much away from him.
But that which might be lost was that which was risked. Nick put so much into his work that he couldn’t really be surprised at the enormous toll that threatened. Only now it was much more horrifying because it wasn’t just himself he risked losing anymore.
He knew the same question of risk met Greg every night that he got up to come to work. But it didn’t make him feel any better about it.
Was this what it was like? Nick knew in that instant that he was about to register the staggering possibility of loss concerning the others as well. His friends, people who were almost his family. He just hadn’t managed to put it into context before, and now he knew he could never avoid it again.
And none of this was helping him deal with the issue of working alongside Greg, Nick thought, frustrated.
He was in the midst of glaring into his fresh cup of coffee when the sound of a shuffling step very close to him made him turn. Greg stood a few feet away, looking down at him. His hand rested on the handle of his cane.
“Hey,” Greg said. Nick looked down at his cup and then up again in one movement. Greg’s hair was tousled as usual, a bit on the shaggier side. His face was open, mouth twitched upward as it often was, but it looked different to Nick, knowing he’d kissed that mouth, tasted inside, been close enough to smell Greg’s cologne and sweat. The memory of a hand squeezing the nape of his neck, a moan he could feel and a mouth opening readily beneath his, panged in Nick’s chest. He dragged his eyes away.
“Hey.”
Greg hovered there beside him, not a hand’s reach from him. “Mind if I sit?”
Nick shook his head and Greg came even closer, edging around to the opposite chair. A spasm crossed his features; the younger man winced, folding himself into the chair with some difficulty, left leg coming to rest cocked out toward the window.
Nick couldn't help himself. "You alright?"
Greg turned a withering stare on him. "You pushed me into the wall."
Nick felt emptiness to rival whatever had come before. Was everything he did twisted when it involved Greg? He looked down at his coffee. "I'm sorry, Greg."
So inadequate.
Greg looked at him for a long time; Nick could feel his eyes. Then there was a soft snort. He looked up and saw that Greg's lips were faintly quirked. His eyes flicked up and down over Nick's face. "It's okay, Nick. It was the wrong side."
His hand hovered over his right hip and Nick felt the humor like a breath of air. He looked away, feeling his own mouth twitch.
"Good to know.”
Greg made a sound of agreement, and then the silence fell again. Nick flinched, glad he was looking at his drink instead of at the other man.
“How’s your leg?” he asked finally.
Greg’s eyebrows rose and he glanced down at his left side. “Metal pins.”
“What?”
Another smile cut across the younger man’s face. “It has metal pins in it now.”
Nick couldn’t summon the humor this time, and just looked back at his coworker. Greg’s demeanor sobered. “It hurts. Vicodin cocktail’s wearing me out. I feel nauseated half the time. And I get to sit like this.”
He gestured at the strange angle of his leg with one hand. Nick looked for the bruising where his wrist was visible beneath the end of his sleeve, but could see nothing except pale skin.
“Sounds like fun,” he murmured. Greg’s eyes sparked.
“Oh, it is.” He gazed out the window. Nick saw his throat work as he swallowed. For a second he wondered about the stitches in Greg’s scalp, if he’d had to shave the back of his head for them. He couldn’t tell from where he sat. Greg turned and caught him looking. His eyes flicked over Nick’s face. “About last night.”
“What?” But Nick knew what he was talking about. It was all over his face.
Greg shrugged, back to his jovial self again. The shift was amazing. “Hey, your night is my day,” he offered playfully.
“This morning,” Nick corrected on a sigh. He hadn’t wanted to be here yet. Not for a few days at least. But there was no getting away from it now, not with Greg sitting there, eyes begging for some sense of understanding.
“I don’t…” He shook his head. “I can’t really explain it easily, Greg.”
“I think I’d be disappointed if you did,” came the response. Nick smiled fleetingly at his coffee.
“I can’t even sort it out for myself yet,” he muttered.
“Well,” Greg said after a moment, “you kissed me.”
Nick grimaced at him. “Yeah. I remember that part, Greg.”
“So do I.” There was something else in his tone this time, something thicker, less controlled. Greg inhaled deeply and let it out. “So.”
“So.”
They sat for several seconds, just looking at each other. Finally, Nick decided to take a stab at it. “I needed to know that you were still there.”
Greg looked puzzled. “I was standing right in front of you.”
“Still alive,” Nick said carefully, noting the way the other man stiffened. Something quickened in his expression.
“Then you weren’t… angry at me.”
Nick shook his head, snorting softly. “Water under the bridge, man.”
Greg nodded, a little too quick. “I thought… Oh, I don’t know what I thought.”
Nick shuddered, still reeling from the after effects of voicing it aloud. He knew there was more to say, that he should try to reconcile the details with Greg, but he had stretched himself too much in the last two days, and he couldn’t summon the energy to ponder anything except how strange it felt to be having this conversation at all.
Greg’s pensiveness was palpable and Nick waited, wondering what would come next. Just having the other man near him was doing odd things to his self-awareness. He could feel each of Greg’s breaths as if he were the one breathing them. When had he become so conscious of it?
At last Greg spoke again, gently. “Why didn’t you come to see me? In the hospital.”
Nick stirred. “I was there,” he managed. Greg’s lips pressed together and then parted. He inclined his head.
“You know what I mean.”
Nick gripped his mug in both hands. This was the part he had hidden from, the one that was still tangled up. But it all centered around one truth which was very, very hard to face.
"I thought you were going to die."
Greg's body stilled and he stared straight at Nick. For once – maybe because there were no strings, no loopholes in his words this time – Nick had no trouble meeting his eyes. "I thought it was going to happen right there, and I was going to hold you while your life went right out of your body. It would happen in my arms. Do you— Do you even see—"
There really weren't any words to convey it. Nick didn't deal with the living; that was depressing in and of itself, that he barely had the fortitude to imagine facing such a horrible scenario before this one. He’d held an injured person before, certainly. And he could find a person from a spot of sweat, name a criminal from the way his left eye twitched. But he couldn't hold onto a life? Couldn't hold onto Greg's life.
He’d crawled out of the abyss once himself, but now he could see too plainly that that had also been out of his control.
Greg was family, Greg was... more than family. And Nick finally knew – had known, listening to the air rushing through Greg’s throat and feeling the sickening softness of battered flesh under his fingers – that he didn't have the power to save that or to protect it, to hold onto it. It wasn't a test tube to study or a DNA strand to decode. It was life and a personality, memories braided into a unique, living, breathing body, as fragile as the sunlight or the wind. The instant it was gone, it was irretrievable, vanished forever. A spark, smothered.
A hundred other sparks in love with that one spark, left alone to burn in the darkness.
Nick shut his eyes.
"You think you're the only one who's felt that?"
He found Greg staring hard at him. Brown eyes wide and focused, full of vibrancy. He'd seen them without that vitality and the difference was startling all over again, painful in a place too deep to dig out or even touch.
Greg’s head shook weakly. “I’ve seen what happens on this job. Grissom and Warrick and… Sara…” His shoulders hunched helplessly. “I felt it when Lindsey was taken, and Catherine was nearly in pieces, and Brass, when Brass was shot, I knew all about helplessness, Nick, because you’re right, there’s nothing you can do but wait. They take it right out of your hands. And then, you… You, Nick…”
He looked up at Nick sharply, but did not say any more. Nick watched him struggle and realized with a start that he couldn’t say any more. Greg’s eyes hollowed painfully, and Nick saw the box again, this time with himself in it, and understood.
“I’ve never felt so helpless,” Greg whispered. “So much at another person’s whim. I mean, he died. And that still didn’t fix it. You were still down there.”
“Did you…” He had to ask. “Did you feel like…” Nick gestured between the two of them, and for a moment he was afraid he’d have to explain. But awareness flickered into Greg’s eyes. He shook his head.
“No. Not like this. Not then. But it didn’t matter.”
No, it didn’t. Nick cleared his throat. He had more to say now, the elusive words had arrived at last. And for the first time, he knew what he wanted without the heaviness of his confusion resting on top. But it would still be difficult to articulate.
Everything with Greg was.
He gestured at nothing, just a small sweep of the table, the restaurant, and the world. "I've always thought of us as a family. Gris and Catherine, they're like the parents, and Sara and Rick and you and me..."
"The kids," Greg finished.
Nick looked down and summoned his thoughts. "I don't want to think like that anymore."
Greg's gaze was riveting. No longer searching, but... Nick exhaled and just looked back, through eight years to a moment when he hadn't known this man, and couldn't imagine what it had been like.
Greg's hand moved, slid across the table. Hesitated for the briefest of instances, and then covered Nick's where it rested on the tabletop.
“Sara said something to me once, right after my first autopsy.” Greg’s voice was low, reflective. His thumb traced over the back of Nick’s hand. “Doc Robbins told me we were only flesh, a body and parts. Not in so many words, but… Then Sara said, ‘It’s what you do with it that counts.’”
He looked up slowly, and Nick felt a strange flutter in his chest. The moment stretched, his hand cupped there under Greg’s, the scent of cooling coffee teasing at his senses.
"Do you want to come over?" Greg asked simply. Softly.
Nick swallowed. Greg's hand was warm. He'd never registered warmth in this way, through this touch. "Won't that hurt you?"
Greg shrugged, smiling a little half-smirk. "We'll manage. We're young and innovative."
This time Nick did laugh. It was small, but it was still a laugh. Greg's hand tightened around his.
"Just... slow. Okay?"
Nick felt his cheeks redden. "You know, you've gotten pretty wise lately."
Greg grinned. "Had a good teacher."
Nick couldn’t have agreed less. But he didn’t say it. He turned his hand over, meeting Greg’s, palm to palm. Fingers tensed around his.
Unexpectedly, Greg pointed at his coffee. “You really going to drink that?”
Nick let out a breath. “No.” He pushed the mug away. Greg’s eyes gleamed in amusement. He pulled his hand away and rose haltingly, leaning on his cane. Nick got up as well, concerned, but Greg straightened without incident and rolled his eyes. “Can’t quite get the hang of this thing.”
Nick busied himself with turning out quarters and bills from his pockets, piling them next to the still-full mug. Greg waited silently, and then edged through the narrow space between their table and the next. Nick let him go by and followed closely, heart beginning to beat faster.
They were almost to the door, almost out into the liminal light of dusk and the wind off the desert, when Greg turned back.
"So... Brass."
"What about him?"
"Does that make Brass some sort of grouchy, jaded uncle?"
Nick laughed, feeling the last of the weight lift. "You know, Greggo? That's absolutely perfect."
~end~
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Thanks for reading! ^_^
