This isn't GD-related
May. 23rd, 2005 01:08 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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nickngregTitle: Broken
Author: acroarcs
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: PG-13
Setting: Late season 5
Disclaimer: Don't own CSI, don't make money from it.
Notes: Follow-up to "Denver". I really can't tell you why Sara has figured so prominently in these two.
Denver (PG)
Broken
“You’re here late.”
Nick turned to find Sara standing in the doorway, then glanced at his watch. “Not by much,” he said. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I just lost track of time, is all. And I was waiting to see if Mia would have my results done tonight.”
“So in the meantime, you’re doing a puzzle.”
“Sort of,” Nick laughed, wondering if his discomfort was showing. There were strips of photographs all over the table, leftovers from a meeting with a paper shredder. “No special jigsaw pieces, just lots and lots of rectangles. Found these and that at a murder scene.” He motioned to a photo album sitting to his side. “It’s empty now.”
“Need any help?” Sara asked. “It’s a slow shift so far.”
“Sure, if you want to give it.” He didn’t really, but he couldn’t tell her that he wanted her to leave because she knew about him and Greg. Sara pulled on set of gloves and sat down beside him, sifting through a pile of photo pieces.
“I’ve been sorting by dominant color,” Nick explained. “Greens here, blues over here, and browns there. Strips with people are here.” He pointed out several different piles. “Anything else goes in the fifth pile.”
“Okay,” Sara said. She started picking through the largest mass of picture strips, the unsorted ones, with him.
Nick moved a batch of brown strips into the appropriate piles, glancing at each to see if they might go together when he got down to reassembling them. Most of them were backgrounds for pictures taken out in the desert. Not very useful, unless they could recover full fingerprints by putting together matching strips with partials. They were easier to look at than the strips in the people pile, though, where glimpses of the victim’s face kept staring back at him.
Sara seemed to be humming some sort of song to herself. It sounded like one of those whiny pop songs that were on the stations neither Nick nor Greg listened to. Nick tried to ignore it, making his way through a group of blues, but she just kept going.
“So the shift is slow, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, going back to humming.
“Then where is everyone else?”
She stopped again. “What do you mean?”
“Everyone else,” Nick said. “If there’s nothing happening, where are all of the others?”
She put down the photo strip she’d been looking at. “The shift’s slow, but it’s not completely quiet. Grissom is out at a scene - I think it was a robbery. He took Sofia with him. He told me to help out where I can here at the lab.” She went back to the pictures, continuing the infuriating humming.
“And…?” Nick said.
“So I’m helping you. I don’t get to work with you that much anymore.” Now, in addition to the humming, she was sporting an infuriating smile. Nick had figured this smile was the one Greg had described to him, talking about his breakfast with Sara, the one she usually had when she thought she knew something. Now he was sure of it.
“Look,” he said sharply. “You know that’s not what I meant. I know about your breakfast with Greg the other day, so just tell me what you know I want to know and let’s move on.”
The smugness abruptly disappeared from her face. “He went to the scene with Grissom, too.”
“Thank you,” Nick said. He put a few greens in their pile. Sara was no longer humming, he noticed. A moment after his realization, she quietly placed the strips in her hands back into the unsorted pile, stood up, and started walking for the door. Nick watched her, slightly puzzled. She stopped in the doorway, looking much like she had when she’d entered just a few minutes before.
She looked back at him. “It’s killing him, Nick,” she said. Then she left.
Nick wanted to get up and follow her, but he couldn’t just leave the evidence lying around. He pulled out an evidence bag for each pile, then filled, sealed, and marked them as quickly as he could while still being careful that he was following procedure. He put everything away, then went looking for her.
When he found Sara, she had settled in at a computer, looking over what appeared to be a phone log. “Sara,” he said from behind her. She turned. “What did you mean, it’s killing him?” he asked.
“I meant just what I said, Nick,” she answered. “Greg can’t handle secrecy. He’s trying, but I think it’s getting to be too much for him.”
“He was handling it just fine before,” Nick said, confused. “He’d never said anything to anyone about him being…” He took a quick glance around himself to make sure there wasn’t anyone who could hear, then picked a safer choice of words anyway. “Being the way he is.”
“Shut the door,” Sara said. As Nick closed the door and took a chair himself, she turned hers away from the computer. Nick watched her closely, but she was silent, as if she were looking for the right thing to say.
“Greg hasn’t said anything to me about this,” Nick said.
“He wouldn’t, Nick,” Sara said. “To him, your relationship is dependent on this deal you two have made.”
Nick started to protest, but she spoke over him. “And he may never have told anyone about himself, but he was never afraid to act like himself before. Maybe you haven’t noticed the change because you’ve only seen him when he’s only with you, but he’s become more serious, more withdrawn over the last couple of months. As if he doesn’t want to let anyone to know any more about his life or his feelings than he has to.”
Nick let out a long sigh. “You think that’s because of me?”
Sara nodded. “I’ve seen the difference this week. He’s opening up to me again, and he shuts himself down whenever there’s anyone else around. Now that I know why, the pattern’s obvious.”
“Damn,” Nick said quietly. He looked down in thought. Could he really be making things that hard for Greg? He hadn’t thought of that possibility, but it fit, and he should have seen it coming. He stood. “I’m going to check and see if Mia’s finished with my samples.” He didn’t add that he needed to go and think through what Sara had told him. She nodded and turned back to the computer as he started for the door.
As his hand touched the doorknob, he stopped. “Sara,” he said. “I didn’t say thank you.”
He heard her chair move behind him. “For keeping your secret?”
“No.” He turned around. She was looking at him. “For telling me what it’s done.” He opened the door and left.
***
Mia hadn’t finished yet, and with no results and Greg in the field, Nick had seen no reason to stay at the crime lab. Doing more work would just mean pulling out all the evidence bags again, sorting mindlessly through the pictures again, and he needed to think. He needed to be aware of thinking, too, and not just let himself get absorbed in something so that he could ignore everything else.
He pulled into his driveway and put the jeep in park. Maybe he could just ignore the issue altogether. But no, he’d promised Greg that he’d work on having an actual relationship, so he couldn’t just pretend that the problem wasn’t there. It was part of the deal, and maybe it was only fair that the deal should make him as uncomfortable and miserable as it apparently made Greg. He hit his head against the steering wheel in frustration.
Damn it, he hadn’t meant to hurt Greg. He hadn’t meant to get involved with Greg at all, but then Greg had leaned over and kissed him that afternoon. That afternoon when they’d spent all morning getting drunk after shift ended, celebrating Greg’s move from the lab to the field. It had been too many fantasies fulfilled, too many prayers answered when he’d woken up that evening and his arms were wrapped around Greg. He could still remember how the smile on his face felt as his mind had run through everything they had done that afternoon.
He’d tried to keep things simple. At least, as simple as they could be if he and Greg were sleeping together. But as Nick had found out, Greg was a master manipulator, and he’d gradually wrapped Nick around his finger. When Greg had basically laid down the law for Nick and told him that they were going to have nothing short of a relationship, Nick had been powerless to refuse. He wanted it, he knew he wanted it, but he wasn’t sure if that was because he wanted Greg or because Greg wanted him to want it.
It had been all he could do to reach some sort of arrangement where he could hold on to the secrecy he’d protected himself with for so long. He got out of his jeep. He didn’t have any protection anymore. Neither, apparently, did Greg.
He went inside the house, throwing his keys on the table and going to the refrigerator. He took a beer out and made his way to the couch before deciding he shouldn’t drink anything. Instead, it ended up on the table, unopened. He sat down, bringing one hand up to his head in an attempt to get rid of the headache he was getting.
He was still on the couch when the door opened. He didn’t bother looking. “Greg,” he said, his head still in his hand. His throat felt thick.
“Nick,” Greg said. “What are you still awake for?”
“Greg,” he said again, trying to clear his throat. “I think this is getting too hard for both of us. The deal’s off.”
“What?”
Nick stood up and turned around. Greg was standing just inside the door, and the look on his face combined surprise, confusion, and pain. Nick walked over to him, shut the door, and put one hand on each of Greg’s shoulders. The two men looked each other in the eyes.
“Greg, Sara told me you’re having problems with your end of the deal, and I believe her,” Nick said.
“No,” Greg said. He looked close to tears. “No, Nick, I’m not.”
“You are,” Nick said. “And I don’t want you to be miserable like that. I don’t want to be the reason you’re miserable. So the deal’s off. You don’t need to hold your end, and…” He swallowed and made sure he knew what he was about to say. “And I don’t need a deal to hold me to my end anymore. You can have it for free.”
“Nick,” Greg said. “You don’t need to do this.”
Nick smiled and shook his head. “Yes, I do, and you need me to do it, too. So there it is. Just try to be a little patient with me, okay? It’s going to take some getting used to.”
Greg smiled at that, then pulled Nick into a long kiss, one long enough that by the time it was over Nick knew that he’d made the right choice in sticking with Greg, in trying to make this relationship work. He knew that it was what he wanted, and that whether Greg had manipulated him into it or not, he wanted it all the same.
The one thing he didn’t know - and the one thing he really wished he did know - was how he was actually going to do this.
Author: acroarcs
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: PG-13
Setting: Late season 5
Disclaimer: Don't own CSI, don't make money from it.
Notes: Follow-up to "Denver". I really can't tell you why Sara has figured so prominently in these two.
Denver (PG)
Broken
“You’re here late.”
Nick turned to find Sara standing in the doorway, then glanced at his watch. “Not by much,” he said. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I just lost track of time, is all. And I was waiting to see if Mia would have my results done tonight.”
“So in the meantime, you’re doing a puzzle.”
“Sort of,” Nick laughed, wondering if his discomfort was showing. There were strips of photographs all over the table, leftovers from a meeting with a paper shredder. “No special jigsaw pieces, just lots and lots of rectangles. Found these and that at a murder scene.” He motioned to a photo album sitting to his side. “It’s empty now.”
“Need any help?” Sara asked. “It’s a slow shift so far.”
“Sure, if you want to give it.” He didn’t really, but he couldn’t tell her that he wanted her to leave because she knew about him and Greg. Sara pulled on set of gloves and sat down beside him, sifting through a pile of photo pieces.
“I’ve been sorting by dominant color,” Nick explained. “Greens here, blues over here, and browns there. Strips with people are here.” He pointed out several different piles. “Anything else goes in the fifth pile.”
“Okay,” Sara said. She started picking through the largest mass of picture strips, the unsorted ones, with him.
Nick moved a batch of brown strips into the appropriate piles, glancing at each to see if they might go together when he got down to reassembling them. Most of them were backgrounds for pictures taken out in the desert. Not very useful, unless they could recover full fingerprints by putting together matching strips with partials. They were easier to look at than the strips in the people pile, though, where glimpses of the victim’s face kept staring back at him.
Sara seemed to be humming some sort of song to herself. It sounded like one of those whiny pop songs that were on the stations neither Nick nor Greg listened to. Nick tried to ignore it, making his way through a group of blues, but she just kept going.
“So the shift is slow, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, going back to humming.
“Then where is everyone else?”
She stopped again. “What do you mean?”
“Everyone else,” Nick said. “If there’s nothing happening, where are all of the others?”
She put down the photo strip she’d been looking at. “The shift’s slow, but it’s not completely quiet. Grissom is out at a scene - I think it was a robbery. He took Sofia with him. He told me to help out where I can here at the lab.” She went back to the pictures, continuing the infuriating humming.
“And…?” Nick said.
“So I’m helping you. I don’t get to work with you that much anymore.” Now, in addition to the humming, she was sporting an infuriating smile. Nick had figured this smile was the one Greg had described to him, talking about his breakfast with Sara, the one she usually had when she thought she knew something. Now he was sure of it.
“Look,” he said sharply. “You know that’s not what I meant. I know about your breakfast with Greg the other day, so just tell me what you know I want to know and let’s move on.”
The smugness abruptly disappeared from her face. “He went to the scene with Grissom, too.”
“Thank you,” Nick said. He put a few greens in their pile. Sara was no longer humming, he noticed. A moment after his realization, she quietly placed the strips in her hands back into the unsorted pile, stood up, and started walking for the door. Nick watched her, slightly puzzled. She stopped in the doorway, looking much like she had when she’d entered just a few minutes before.
She looked back at him. “It’s killing him, Nick,” she said. Then she left.
Nick wanted to get up and follow her, but he couldn’t just leave the evidence lying around. He pulled out an evidence bag for each pile, then filled, sealed, and marked them as quickly as he could while still being careful that he was following procedure. He put everything away, then went looking for her.
When he found Sara, she had settled in at a computer, looking over what appeared to be a phone log. “Sara,” he said from behind her. She turned. “What did you mean, it’s killing him?” he asked.
“I meant just what I said, Nick,” she answered. “Greg can’t handle secrecy. He’s trying, but I think it’s getting to be too much for him.”
“He was handling it just fine before,” Nick said, confused. “He’d never said anything to anyone about him being…” He took a quick glance around himself to make sure there wasn’t anyone who could hear, then picked a safer choice of words anyway. “Being the way he is.”
“Shut the door,” Sara said. As Nick closed the door and took a chair himself, she turned hers away from the computer. Nick watched her closely, but she was silent, as if she were looking for the right thing to say.
“Greg hasn’t said anything to me about this,” Nick said.
“He wouldn’t, Nick,” Sara said. “To him, your relationship is dependent on this deal you two have made.”
Nick started to protest, but she spoke over him. “And he may never have told anyone about himself, but he was never afraid to act like himself before. Maybe you haven’t noticed the change because you’ve only seen him when he’s only with you, but he’s become more serious, more withdrawn over the last couple of months. As if he doesn’t want to let anyone to know any more about his life or his feelings than he has to.”
Nick let out a long sigh. “You think that’s because of me?”
Sara nodded. “I’ve seen the difference this week. He’s opening up to me again, and he shuts himself down whenever there’s anyone else around. Now that I know why, the pattern’s obvious.”
“Damn,” Nick said quietly. He looked down in thought. Could he really be making things that hard for Greg? He hadn’t thought of that possibility, but it fit, and he should have seen it coming. He stood. “I’m going to check and see if Mia’s finished with my samples.” He didn’t add that he needed to go and think through what Sara had told him. She nodded and turned back to the computer as he started for the door.
As his hand touched the doorknob, he stopped. “Sara,” he said. “I didn’t say thank you.”
He heard her chair move behind him. “For keeping your secret?”
“No.” He turned around. She was looking at him. “For telling me what it’s done.” He opened the door and left.
***
Mia hadn’t finished yet, and with no results and Greg in the field, Nick had seen no reason to stay at the crime lab. Doing more work would just mean pulling out all the evidence bags again, sorting mindlessly through the pictures again, and he needed to think. He needed to be aware of thinking, too, and not just let himself get absorbed in something so that he could ignore everything else.
He pulled into his driveway and put the jeep in park. Maybe he could just ignore the issue altogether. But no, he’d promised Greg that he’d work on having an actual relationship, so he couldn’t just pretend that the problem wasn’t there. It was part of the deal, and maybe it was only fair that the deal should make him as uncomfortable and miserable as it apparently made Greg. He hit his head against the steering wheel in frustration.
Damn it, he hadn’t meant to hurt Greg. He hadn’t meant to get involved with Greg at all, but then Greg had leaned over and kissed him that afternoon. That afternoon when they’d spent all morning getting drunk after shift ended, celebrating Greg’s move from the lab to the field. It had been too many fantasies fulfilled, too many prayers answered when he’d woken up that evening and his arms were wrapped around Greg. He could still remember how the smile on his face felt as his mind had run through everything they had done that afternoon.
He’d tried to keep things simple. At least, as simple as they could be if he and Greg were sleeping together. But as Nick had found out, Greg was a master manipulator, and he’d gradually wrapped Nick around his finger. When Greg had basically laid down the law for Nick and told him that they were going to have nothing short of a relationship, Nick had been powerless to refuse. He wanted it, he knew he wanted it, but he wasn’t sure if that was because he wanted Greg or because Greg wanted him to want it.
It had been all he could do to reach some sort of arrangement where he could hold on to the secrecy he’d protected himself with for so long. He got out of his jeep. He didn’t have any protection anymore. Neither, apparently, did Greg.
He went inside the house, throwing his keys on the table and going to the refrigerator. He took a beer out and made his way to the couch before deciding he shouldn’t drink anything. Instead, it ended up on the table, unopened. He sat down, bringing one hand up to his head in an attempt to get rid of the headache he was getting.
He was still on the couch when the door opened. He didn’t bother looking. “Greg,” he said, his head still in his hand. His throat felt thick.
“Nick,” Greg said. “What are you still awake for?”
“Greg,” he said again, trying to clear his throat. “I think this is getting too hard for both of us. The deal’s off.”
“What?”
Nick stood up and turned around. Greg was standing just inside the door, and the look on his face combined surprise, confusion, and pain. Nick walked over to him, shut the door, and put one hand on each of Greg’s shoulders. The two men looked each other in the eyes.
“Greg, Sara told me you’re having problems with your end of the deal, and I believe her,” Nick said.
“No,” Greg said. He looked close to tears. “No, Nick, I’m not.”
“You are,” Nick said. “And I don’t want you to be miserable like that. I don’t want to be the reason you’re miserable. So the deal’s off. You don’t need to hold your end, and…” He swallowed and made sure he knew what he was about to say. “And I don’t need a deal to hold me to my end anymore. You can have it for free.”
“Nick,” Greg said. “You don’t need to do this.”
Nick smiled and shook his head. “Yes, I do, and you need me to do it, too. So there it is. Just try to be a little patient with me, okay? It’s going to take some getting used to.”
Greg smiled at that, then pulled Nick into a long kiss, one long enough that by the time it was over Nick knew that he’d made the right choice in sticking with Greg, in trying to make this relationship work. He knew that it was what he wanted, and that whether Greg had manipulated him into it or not, he wanted it all the same.
The one thing he didn’t know - and the one thing he really wished he did know - was how he was actually going to do this.
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Date: 2005-05-23 05:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 05:50 am (UTC)Luv it.
annakas
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Date: 2005-05-23 06:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 06:26 am (UTC)Another part? Heh, not sure, but heck, maybe Denver will come up again. You've put the idea in my head.
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Date: 2005-05-23 06:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 06:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 11:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 12:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-24 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-25 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-28 11:01 am (UTC)Wonderful piece. Really good. Can't wait for more :)