FIC: One Good Man 13/?
Aug. 30th, 2004 01:32 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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nickngregAuthor: geekwriter
Title: One Good Man – Part 13
Rating: R
Category: angst, romance
Warnings: description of childhood sexual abuse (not graphic, but still)
Summary: Greg and Nick after a bad night for both of them.
Greg pulled his silver Jetta into his parking spot, then sighed and leaned his head forward to rest against the steering wheel. It was nearly noon and he was surprised he hadn't fallen asleep on the drive home.
He'd stayed late at the lab, purportedly to finish up with the dayshift overflow. He'd also wanted to be there when Nick got back, but Nick never got back.
He was edgy, keeping his eyes on the hallway, watching for Nick while at the same time processing three pieces of evidence for each one Benson, the dayshift tech, processed. The more he waited, the more Nick didn't return and when he caved and tried Nick's cell phone it went immediately to voicemail. He paged Nick a little after that, but Nick never called him back.
Around eleven-thirty, he'd sought out Benson in the break room, slapped his can of soda out of his hand and demanded to know if Benson was incompetent or just lazy, since that was already his third break of the day. He let Benson, and anyone else within ear shot, know that he was fucking sick of doing everything the dayshift tech didn't bother getting around to on top of his own workload. He may have said something to the effect that even though Benson had 15 years on him, he still processed like a first year intern. He may have also mentioned that if Benson continued with his current habit of remaining immobile most of the shift, he was certain to be mistaken for a test dummy—something that Greg wouldn't mind since at least Benson would actually be useful when Greg had to test the velocity of blood spatter resulting from a swift kick to the head.
He felt shitty for saying it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. It didn't help when Benson cornered him in the locker room, nearly in tears, and asked what Greg expected him to do.
"Just your job, man," Greg said wearily. "Just do your job so I can do mine, all right?"
He was halfway home when he remembered that his Techniques of Biological Evidence Collection class had been at nine. He was too tired to care, and it wasn't like he'd never handled a biological sample before. Hell, if he kept missing classes all he'd do was handle biological samples for the rest of his life.
Finally, he got out of his car and locked it behind him as he shuffled towards his front door. He stopped when he saw Nick sitting on his front porch, his back against the sliding glass door.
"Hey," Greg said softly.
Nick looked up at him and squinted in the sunlight. "Hey."
"You been waiting long?"
Nick shrugged. "I knew you had class this morning. It's OK."
"You could have gotten Mrs. Palmbach to let you in."
"I didn't want to bother her. Besides, it's kind of nice out here. The view's not bad."
Greg sat down next to him and sighed. From where they were sitting he could just barely see the tip of the Eiffel Tower at Paris, Las Vegas.
"How was class?"
"Missed it."
"What? Why?" Nick sounded concerned.
"Work. I finished up all the overflow, then screamed at Benson and pretty much physically assaulted him in the break room."
"You hit him?"
Greg shook his head. "His soda can. It was grape. That stain's not ever coming out of his shirt, I can tell you."
"I'll see you your can of grape soda and raise you one brick wall," Nick said, raising his hand. He'd had it tucked against his waist so Greg hadn't seen it before.
"What did you do?" Greg asked breathlessly as he surveyed Nick's swollen and bruised knuckles, his bandaged hand.
"It was either punch the wall or punch a woman," Nick said softly, his eyes fierce. "I've never hit a woman, never will. Not even one like her. So I punched the wall."
"Baby," Greg whispered, reaching up to touch his face.
"They won't be able to put a cast on it until the swelling goes down."
"You broke it?"
Nick shook his head. "Not really. Hairline fracture. I've had them before."
Greg nuzzled against him. "Come on, let's get you into bed. You've had a rough night."
"You, too," Nick said as Greg pulled away and stood up. "I'm sorry I yelled at you like that."
"I knew it wasn't personal," Greg said, helping him up.
"I still shouldn't have snapped."
Greg shrugged. "It happens. You should have heard the things I said to Benson. I was far worse." He smoothed Nick's hair down before digging in his pocket for his keys. "We're going to have to get you your own set," Greg said as he unlocked the door. He tensed for a moment, thinking maybe he'd gone too far by offering Nick his own set of keys.
Nick rubbed Greg's back with his left hand as he followed him inside. "That would be nice," he said before kissing the back of Greg's neck.
When he turned to shut the door, Greg caught a glimpse of Mrs. Palmbach behind her hibiscus bush, pretending that she hadn't just eavesdropped on their entire conversation.
"You OK?" Greg asked softly, reaching for Nick in the blue twilight of the living room.
Nick shook his head. "No." He wrapped his arms around Greg's waist, buried his face in Greg's shoulder.
"You wanna talk about it?"
He shook his head again and took a shaky breath. "I'm so tired," he whispered.
Greg rubbed Nick's back in slow circles. "I know," he murmured. "I know you are." He held Nick for a few minutes, breathed in his scent. "Come on," he said finally. "Let's get you into bed."
Nick followed him into the bedroom and collapsed onto the bed wearing everything, including his shoes.
Greg knelt next to him and undressed him carefully, making sure he didn't hurt Nick's injured hand. He pulled his own clothes off, then slid into bed. They curled their bodies together, not in their usual tangle but instead with Nick's head on Greg's chest, his right hand resting across Greg's ribs.
He was almost surprised at how easy it was to fall asleep. All he had to do was close his eyes.
When he woke up he was cold, and he knew it was because he'd become accustomed to the heat that radiated from Nick's body next to his every night. He opened his eyes and lifted his head and saw that Nick was still there, but he was sitting on the edge of the bed staring at the wall.
"You going running?" Greg asked sleepily as he reached out to touch Nick's hip through his sweatpants.
Nick shook his head.
He pushed himself up and leaned to kiss Nick's bare shoulder. "You're cold," he murmured, his lips brushing against Nick's air-cooled skin. "Come back to bed."
"They're so young," Nick whispered. He sounded weary and Greg wondered if he'd slept at all. "They're all so young. So small. I look at them and they're just…I don't know how they carry around something that heavy when they're so small. How do they not break under the load?"
Greg sighed and laid his cheek against Nick's shoulder. "Kids are tough. They have to be, I think. With the stuff this job has shown me, the way so many adults treat them like they're not fully human, they have to be tough. They just do whatever they can to survive."
"Jacob Ellerson didn't survive."
Greg nodded. "That woman killed him?"
"She was his teacher. His sixth grade teacher and she…and when he wanted it to stop, when he told her to stop she killed him. He just wanted a normal life. He just wanted it to stop and she killed him for it."
Greg didn't know what to say so he just rubbed Nick's back gently.
"You should have seen him, Greg. Lying there on that cold steel while the doc opened him up. He was so small. I just stared at him and all I could think about was how small he was, how she'd taken that little boy and used him to…" He choked back a sob and Greg slid his fingers through his hair, whispered to him that it was all right.
"I try," Nick whispered. "I try so hard."
"I know," Greg said, though he didn't. He wasn't going to ask. The explanation could wait until later. "I know you do."
"I just stared at him. He was so small. I can't believe I was ever so small."
Greg slid towards the edge of the bed so that he could touch Nick's face, look into his eyes.
Nick couldn't look at him, had to look away. "I thought…I thought that as I got bigger it would go away, that it wouldn't be so hard to carry. I thought when I was big that everything would be OK. But it got bigger, too, and heavier every day. Sometimes I don't know if I can make it, if I can carry it anymore without breaking under the weight of it."
And as Greg pulled Nick into his arms his face twisted with pain. It hurt, hurt in his chest and the back of his throat and down to the base of his spine. His beautiful Nick, his perfect Nick hiding all that pain. "I'll take it," he murmured, rocking Nick gently. "Give me half and we'll carry it together."
Nick let out a sob as his fingers dug into the skin of Greg's back.
"You're carrying half of my burden," Greg whispered. "It's only fair that I carry half of yours."
"I never told anybody," he said. "I told Catherine a few years ago, but only because I had to, because I was starting to crack and she could see it."
"We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Greg said softly. "But if you want to talk, you can tell me anything. You know that, don't you?"
"I didn't think anyone would believe me," Nick said. "Not that it happened, I knew they'd probably believe that it happened, but they wouldn't believe I hadn't wanted it. Because she was pretty and everyone liked her. She'd never babysat for me before, but her family had moved from Houston the year before and everybody in the neighborhood knew she was popular and had guys falling all over themselves for her. Who'd believe I hadn't wanted it? Who'd believe that I hated it, that it made me sick inside?"
Greg stroked Nick's neck gently. "I believe you."
"It's what boys are supposed to want, right? You're supposed to want it, and if you say you don't you're lying."
"That's bullshit and you know it."
Nick pulled away from him and wiped at his cheeks, tried to dry his eyes. "I was on the floor. I was drawing, and she walked by and stood over me, watching. She asked if I was looking up her skirt, and she laughed when I said no. She asked me why not and I said I didn't care what color her underpants were. She sat on the floor next to me and asked if I thought she was pretty. She was, so I told her so. My grandfather taught me never to lie. She asked if I wanted to kiss her and I said no and she laughed again. She asked if I was queer. I didn't know what it meant. I was nine. I don't think I'd even heard the word before, but I could tell it was a bad thing so I said no. She said she had a special game to play but we had to go upstairs to play it. I followed her upstairs to my room. I went with her. She didn't make me."
"You didn't know what she was going to do."
"She took her clothes off and said I had to take mine off, too. I didn't want to but she called me a chicken, called me a fraidy cat. She touched me everywhere, made me touch her places, use my mouth on her. When I started to cry she said I was a sissy and she grabbed me, she grabbed my dick and she said if I didn't stop crying that one day it would shrivel up and shrink inside me and I'd turn into a girl."
Greg let out a slow breath. "Jesus, baby."
"When she was done she laughed at me, told me I cried like a little girl. She asked if my friends knew what a crybaby I was. I felt so ashamed. And dirty, just filthy. I took my bath and I turned the water up so hot and I scrubbed at my skin so hard and the feeling wouldn't go away. For months afterwards my mom joked that she had the only third grader in the world that actually wanted to take a bath. She never knew why, never knew I couldn't get clean no matter what I did."
"Oh, my baby," Greg murmured. "Oh, my sweet baby. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"It's not your fault." Nick's voice was flat.
"It's not yours, either." Greg took Nick's chin in his hand and turned his head so he could look into Nick's eyes. "You know that, don't you? That's it's not your fault?"
Nick nodded. "Intellectually, I guess, but—"
"You were a child, Nick. Younger even than the little boy you saw on the slab today. How were you supposed to be able to fight her?"
"It's not like she forced me. It's not like she threatened to hurt me."
"Yes, she did. Can you name one thing more terrifying to a nine year-old than being called names? Sissy, crybaby, queer, girl, chicken…Jesus. She might as well have held a gun to your head. She knew exactly what weapons to use to make you do what she wanted."
Nick sniffed. "Sometimes, I think…" He looked away and took a shaky breath.
"Sometimes you think what?" Greg asked, stroking the short hair at the nape of Nick's neck.
"That she made me this way. That if she hadn't…then maybe I'd be normal."
Greg kissed Nick's shoulder. "Define normal."
"Normal," Nick snapped. "You know, like other people. Not like this, not like…" He shook his head.
"Not like what?" Greg asked. "Not like you and me, you mean?"
"I didn't say that."
"You don't have to." He looked down at his hands. "It breaks my heart to know that you think we're abnormal, that you're ashamed of what we've got."
Nick looked over quickly. "No, Greg, I'm not—"
"Because falling in love with you was the easiest, most natural thing I've ever done in my life, and it happened in an instant. Did you know that? Did you know that I fell in love with you the first time I saw you?"
Nick shook his head. "I'm not ashamed of us, baby."
Greg nodded and leaned to kiss him. "It was my second day of work," he whispered, "and I was nervous, edgy. I didn't know if I could handle being so far from the ocean, my friends, everything I'd always known. And I was thinking about whether or not I could cut it on my own when you walked in. You and Warrick were arguing over a bet, and you were laughing and your smile just killed me. I felt it right in my gut, down to my knees. And I thought, 'I'm going to be in love with him for the rest of my life.'" He smiled. "And I was right."
"I don't know what I'd do without you, how I'd survive this without you. If we hadn't…if I had to face this case alone…"
"You don't have to face anything alone. Not anymore."
Nick nodded and slid the fingers of his left hand through Greg's, held them tight.
"I don't know if I can fix this," Greg whispered, "If I can fix what she did to you, if I can take away any of the pain but I'm going to try and it starts with this: you have nothing, absolutely nothing to be ashamed of."
"I could have stopped her."
"No."
"She didn't hold me down, didn't rough me up. She was just a teenage girl."
"And you were a child. Do you know what a nine year-old boy looks like standing next to a seventeen year-old girl? You didn't have a chance. She made sure you didn't have a chance. The shame's on her, Nick. None of it's yours."
"I feel like it's still inside of me. All that blackness. All that dirt."
"No, baby. You were never dirty. That was her twisting your head, making you think that there was something wrong with you."
"Maybe it was already there," Nick whispered. "Maybe I was already bad and she could just see it is all."
"No." Greg didn't know when he'd started crying but he could feel the tears hot on his cheeks. "It wasn't you. You said it yourself—we'll never know why people do what they do. Maybe somebody hurt her when she was a kid and she didn't know how to break the cycle. Maybe she was just fucked up. But it was never you."
"You don't know that. You can't know that."
"Yes I can." He threaded his fingers through Nick's hair. "You're a good man. I know that to be true. Look at what you do for a living—you spend your entire life helping other people. Look at the way you treated me when you found out about my past. You didn't run. You didn't push me away."
"But the sugar, Greg, I…"
It was the first time they'd really talked about it since it had happened, and as Nick said it Greg realized he wasn't angry anymore, not at all. "That doesn't matter now," he said. "You were scared and overreacted and I was scared so I overreacted back. It's called a fight, and every couple has them. We got through it, that's all that matters."
"I didn't want to think it, but it all seemed so fast. I thought it had to be too good to be true."
Greg smiled and tipped his forehead against Nick's. "I know. If you hadn't freaked out, then I would have over something just as small. It was bound to happen. What matters is that we didn't give up."
Nick nodded and leaned into Greg's embrace, let Greg lean him back and lay him on the bed. They became their usual tangle of arms and legs, foreheads pressed together, breathing slowed as they touched and caressed each other's face, shoulders, chest.
"I wonder," Nick whispered, "I know it's…I know that's not how it's supposed to work, but I still wonder if I'd like women if it hadn't happened."
"Did you like girls before?"
"I was nine. I thought they had cooties."
"I don't know about you," Greg whispered, "but when I look back at my life, even back into my childhood, I can see that I was always bi. I can see that I had crushes on boys and girls even in elementary school. I was in love with Roger, my first grade teacher."
"You called your teacher by his first name?"
"It was a progressive school," Greg said. "San Francisco, remember?"
Nick smiled.
"I didn't know what it was then, but as soon as I realized I was bi, it all made sense. The way my heart would race every time I saw him, the way I wanted to be close to him all the time, how jealous I was when he paid more attention to anyone else in the class. There were other crushes, too. Billy Pak was my best friend in fourth grade, and when I'd go for sleepovers we'd snuggle close together and hold hands. It wasn't sexual, just, you know, love."
Nick smiled slightly. "I thought you were in love with Tweet."
"I was. But I loved Billy, too. I just didn't know it until later. Don't you have anything like that, any memories that only made sense once you realized you were gay?"
"Well, I was pretty obsessed with Bo Duke. I told my mom once that I was going to marry him. She told me that boys didn't marry other boys, and I said that I had to marry him because otherwise he wouldn't let me drive the General Lee."
"We're born this way, Nick," Greg whispered. "And, fine, so I'm obviously biased in favor of DNA, but even if I knew nothing about genetics I'd still know it was true. Gender doesn't matter to me when I fall in love, and I was born like this. Why? Who knows? Maybe I was born to fall in love with you."
Nick took a shaky breath. "I know what you mean, now," he whispered, his voice thick with tears. "I know what you mean about being broken into a million pieces by just the words someone says."
Greg trailed his fingers along Nick's cheekbone. "I didn't mean to."
"It's OK. You were right about that, too. It's not bad at all."
They held each other for a long time, and Greg thought Nick had fallen asleep until he spoke again. "I spent so much time holding that in that I started to think if I told anyone the world would end."
"Did it?"
Nick shook his head. "No. I'm…I don't know how I feel. Relieved and shaky and fucked up. Not good, but better anyway. I think."
"If you feel like going for broke you can come to therapy with me on Tuesday."
"Let me guess, the General Lee symbolizes the penis."
Greg laughed softly. "It's not that kind of therapy."
"It doesn't feel weird?" Nick asked. "Telling a stranger all your personal business?"
"Well, my parents did start sending me to analysis when I was five, so I'm kind of used to it."
Nick laughed and slid his fingers through Greg's hair. "I'm sorry."
"It's all right. My analyst wasn't insane like they are. And I quit for a long time, stopped going when I was in high school and didn't start again until last year."
"Does it help?"
Greg nodded. "Yeah. They don't expect you to open up right away, you know. They give you time to trust them. And it's not like talking to a friend or anything because they're totally objective. You can tell them anything, good or bad, without having to worry about their reaction. You don't have to worry about how to phrase things so that nobody's feelings get hurt. And when else do you ever get the chance to just talk about yourself for an hour?"
"I never thought about it like that, I guess. I'm still not sure, though."
"You don't have to come with me, but despite my parents I think it's helpful. I could give you some names and you can call them if you ever feel like it's something you want to do. Or, you know, she doesn't usually work over the phone but I'm sure Annika would love to start analysis with you."
Nick laughed. "I don't know. I'm more partial to Jeff's theories of anal pleasure."
"Oh, God," Greg groaned. "I was always afraid to go into his office. I was afraid I'd accidentally run across some scat fetish magazines or something."
"Did you?"
"No. Thank God. But he does smoke on the toilet."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean he smokes when he's…you know. Releasing his bowels."
"Oh my God."
"He doesn't think we know, but those are two very specific smells and I decided a long time ago that I'm just going to stay in denial about the whole thing and not ever wonder what the connection between them is."
"I think that's a good idea," Nick said. "Not that I'm a big fan of putting five year olds into therapy, but I think with your parents, you probably needed it."
"Yeah. That's probably the only reason I never pipe bombed my high school."
"You could make a pipe bomb when you were in high school?"
Greg scoffed. "You know how simple they are. An eight year old could do it. I was far more complex than that."
"Well, you were running a meth lab at fifteen. I suppose that's some sort of twisted proof that you were a child genius."
Greg tweaked his nipple. "Asshole. And I was a child genius. Hell, I'm an adult genius, only nobody notices because I'm not socially inept."
"Do I hear a little bitterness in your voice? A little resentment towards a certain introverted entomologist?"
"Nah. Gris is cool, and people will acknowledge my brilliance eventually."
"Not to mention your modesty."
Greg kissed him quickly. "Yeah. That, too. Although…"
"What?"
"Well, I always kind of wondered, and since we're on the subject…"
"Fine, Greg, I acknowledge that you're brilliant."
"Well, that's good, but that's not what I was going to ask." Greg propped himself up on his elbow and peered down at Nick for a moment. "Did you guys ever…you know. Hook up?"
"What?" Nick asked.
"You know, was there ever, like, a thing going on between the two of you?"
"Me and Grissom?" Nick demanded, sitting up.
"You don't have to tell me, I just always thought that maybe…"
"No," Nick said. "No way, man. Are you serious?"
"Well, it would explain a lot of things."
Nick laughed. "Like what?"
"I don't know. Tension, I guess. Older man jilted by his hot young lover…"
"You’re insane."
"So there was never, like, a quick blow job in the parking lot or one night of unrestrained passion?"
"I can't believe you're even suggesting that. No. Nothing."
"Hmmm. Well, I still think he has the hots for you."
Nick snorted. "He has the hots for Sara."
"Jacqui and I were talking about that, and we don't think so. He used to have the hots for Sara, but we decided that now he's either madly in love with you, Warrick, or Catherine."
"Oh, you narrowed it down to three of us, did you?"
"Yeah."
"Lab techs have way too much time on their hands."
"Yeah, well, when you can run autosomal multiplexes in your sleep, you've got a lot of time to observe what's going on around you. It's not like what I do is that challenging, mentally."
"Says the genius."
Greg laughed and snuggled against him. "Take the sample, run the test. Take another sample, run another test. Take another sample, run a different test. It's boring, which is why we bounce theories off each other. Otherwise, we'd lose our minds."
"You definitely need more time in the field."
"You wanna tell Grissom that? I mean, if he's not still sore about you breaking his heart and all." He laughed and tried to squirm away when Nick began to tickle him. "OK, fine. Fine, I give. Uncle! You and Gris never had an affair!"
"Damn right we didn't," Nick said. He placed soft, feathery kisses along the curve of Greg's ear. "You think I'd risk my job for anybody else but you?"
"Mmmm." Greg shivered as Nick's lips closed around his earlobe. He curled his fingers around the back of Nick's neck. "You'd better not."
Title: One Good Man – Part 13
Rating: R
Category: angst, romance
Warnings: description of childhood sexual abuse (not graphic, but still)
Summary: Greg and Nick after a bad night for both of them.
Greg pulled his silver Jetta into his parking spot, then sighed and leaned his head forward to rest against the steering wheel. It was nearly noon and he was surprised he hadn't fallen asleep on the drive home.
He'd stayed late at the lab, purportedly to finish up with the dayshift overflow. He'd also wanted to be there when Nick got back, but Nick never got back.
He was edgy, keeping his eyes on the hallway, watching for Nick while at the same time processing three pieces of evidence for each one Benson, the dayshift tech, processed. The more he waited, the more Nick didn't return and when he caved and tried Nick's cell phone it went immediately to voicemail. He paged Nick a little after that, but Nick never called him back.
Around eleven-thirty, he'd sought out Benson in the break room, slapped his can of soda out of his hand and demanded to know if Benson was incompetent or just lazy, since that was already his third break of the day. He let Benson, and anyone else within ear shot, know that he was fucking sick of doing everything the dayshift tech didn't bother getting around to on top of his own workload. He may have said something to the effect that even though Benson had 15 years on him, he still processed like a first year intern. He may have also mentioned that if Benson continued with his current habit of remaining immobile most of the shift, he was certain to be mistaken for a test dummy—something that Greg wouldn't mind since at least Benson would actually be useful when Greg had to test the velocity of blood spatter resulting from a swift kick to the head.
He felt shitty for saying it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. It didn't help when Benson cornered him in the locker room, nearly in tears, and asked what Greg expected him to do.
"Just your job, man," Greg said wearily. "Just do your job so I can do mine, all right?"
He was halfway home when he remembered that his Techniques of Biological Evidence Collection class had been at nine. He was too tired to care, and it wasn't like he'd never handled a biological sample before. Hell, if he kept missing classes all he'd do was handle biological samples for the rest of his life.
Finally, he got out of his car and locked it behind him as he shuffled towards his front door. He stopped when he saw Nick sitting on his front porch, his back against the sliding glass door.
"Hey," Greg said softly.
Nick looked up at him and squinted in the sunlight. "Hey."
"You been waiting long?"
Nick shrugged. "I knew you had class this morning. It's OK."
"You could have gotten Mrs. Palmbach to let you in."
"I didn't want to bother her. Besides, it's kind of nice out here. The view's not bad."
Greg sat down next to him and sighed. From where they were sitting he could just barely see the tip of the Eiffel Tower at Paris, Las Vegas.
"How was class?"
"Missed it."
"What? Why?" Nick sounded concerned.
"Work. I finished up all the overflow, then screamed at Benson and pretty much physically assaulted him in the break room."
"You hit him?"
Greg shook his head. "His soda can. It was grape. That stain's not ever coming out of his shirt, I can tell you."
"I'll see you your can of grape soda and raise you one brick wall," Nick said, raising his hand. He'd had it tucked against his waist so Greg hadn't seen it before.
"What did you do?" Greg asked breathlessly as he surveyed Nick's swollen and bruised knuckles, his bandaged hand.
"It was either punch the wall or punch a woman," Nick said softly, his eyes fierce. "I've never hit a woman, never will. Not even one like her. So I punched the wall."
"Baby," Greg whispered, reaching up to touch his face.
"They won't be able to put a cast on it until the swelling goes down."
"You broke it?"
Nick shook his head. "Not really. Hairline fracture. I've had them before."
Greg nuzzled against him. "Come on, let's get you into bed. You've had a rough night."
"You, too," Nick said as Greg pulled away and stood up. "I'm sorry I yelled at you like that."
"I knew it wasn't personal," Greg said, helping him up.
"I still shouldn't have snapped."
Greg shrugged. "It happens. You should have heard the things I said to Benson. I was far worse." He smoothed Nick's hair down before digging in his pocket for his keys. "We're going to have to get you your own set," Greg said as he unlocked the door. He tensed for a moment, thinking maybe he'd gone too far by offering Nick his own set of keys.
Nick rubbed Greg's back with his left hand as he followed him inside. "That would be nice," he said before kissing the back of Greg's neck.
When he turned to shut the door, Greg caught a glimpse of Mrs. Palmbach behind her hibiscus bush, pretending that she hadn't just eavesdropped on their entire conversation.
"You OK?" Greg asked softly, reaching for Nick in the blue twilight of the living room.
Nick shook his head. "No." He wrapped his arms around Greg's waist, buried his face in Greg's shoulder.
"You wanna talk about it?"
He shook his head again and took a shaky breath. "I'm so tired," he whispered.
Greg rubbed Nick's back in slow circles. "I know," he murmured. "I know you are." He held Nick for a few minutes, breathed in his scent. "Come on," he said finally. "Let's get you into bed."
Nick followed him into the bedroom and collapsed onto the bed wearing everything, including his shoes.
Greg knelt next to him and undressed him carefully, making sure he didn't hurt Nick's injured hand. He pulled his own clothes off, then slid into bed. They curled their bodies together, not in their usual tangle but instead with Nick's head on Greg's chest, his right hand resting across Greg's ribs.
He was almost surprised at how easy it was to fall asleep. All he had to do was close his eyes.
When he woke up he was cold, and he knew it was because he'd become accustomed to the heat that radiated from Nick's body next to his every night. He opened his eyes and lifted his head and saw that Nick was still there, but he was sitting on the edge of the bed staring at the wall.
"You going running?" Greg asked sleepily as he reached out to touch Nick's hip through his sweatpants.
Nick shook his head.
He pushed himself up and leaned to kiss Nick's bare shoulder. "You're cold," he murmured, his lips brushing against Nick's air-cooled skin. "Come back to bed."
"They're so young," Nick whispered. He sounded weary and Greg wondered if he'd slept at all. "They're all so young. So small. I look at them and they're just…I don't know how they carry around something that heavy when they're so small. How do they not break under the load?"
Greg sighed and laid his cheek against Nick's shoulder. "Kids are tough. They have to be, I think. With the stuff this job has shown me, the way so many adults treat them like they're not fully human, they have to be tough. They just do whatever they can to survive."
"Jacob Ellerson didn't survive."
Greg nodded. "That woman killed him?"
"She was his teacher. His sixth grade teacher and she…and when he wanted it to stop, when he told her to stop she killed him. He just wanted a normal life. He just wanted it to stop and she killed him for it."
Greg didn't know what to say so he just rubbed Nick's back gently.
"You should have seen him, Greg. Lying there on that cold steel while the doc opened him up. He was so small. I just stared at him and all I could think about was how small he was, how she'd taken that little boy and used him to…" He choked back a sob and Greg slid his fingers through his hair, whispered to him that it was all right.
"I try," Nick whispered. "I try so hard."
"I know," Greg said, though he didn't. He wasn't going to ask. The explanation could wait until later. "I know you do."
"I just stared at him. He was so small. I can't believe I was ever so small."
Greg slid towards the edge of the bed so that he could touch Nick's face, look into his eyes.
Nick couldn't look at him, had to look away. "I thought…I thought that as I got bigger it would go away, that it wouldn't be so hard to carry. I thought when I was big that everything would be OK. But it got bigger, too, and heavier every day. Sometimes I don't know if I can make it, if I can carry it anymore without breaking under the weight of it."
And as Greg pulled Nick into his arms his face twisted with pain. It hurt, hurt in his chest and the back of his throat and down to the base of his spine. His beautiful Nick, his perfect Nick hiding all that pain. "I'll take it," he murmured, rocking Nick gently. "Give me half and we'll carry it together."
Nick let out a sob as his fingers dug into the skin of Greg's back.
"You're carrying half of my burden," Greg whispered. "It's only fair that I carry half of yours."
"I never told anybody," he said. "I told Catherine a few years ago, but only because I had to, because I was starting to crack and she could see it."
"We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Greg said softly. "But if you want to talk, you can tell me anything. You know that, don't you?"
"I didn't think anyone would believe me," Nick said. "Not that it happened, I knew they'd probably believe that it happened, but they wouldn't believe I hadn't wanted it. Because she was pretty and everyone liked her. She'd never babysat for me before, but her family had moved from Houston the year before and everybody in the neighborhood knew she was popular and had guys falling all over themselves for her. Who'd believe I hadn't wanted it? Who'd believe that I hated it, that it made me sick inside?"
Greg stroked Nick's neck gently. "I believe you."
"It's what boys are supposed to want, right? You're supposed to want it, and if you say you don't you're lying."
"That's bullshit and you know it."
Nick pulled away from him and wiped at his cheeks, tried to dry his eyes. "I was on the floor. I was drawing, and she walked by and stood over me, watching. She asked if I was looking up her skirt, and she laughed when I said no. She asked me why not and I said I didn't care what color her underpants were. She sat on the floor next to me and asked if I thought she was pretty. She was, so I told her so. My grandfather taught me never to lie. She asked if I wanted to kiss her and I said no and she laughed again. She asked if I was queer. I didn't know what it meant. I was nine. I don't think I'd even heard the word before, but I could tell it was a bad thing so I said no. She said she had a special game to play but we had to go upstairs to play it. I followed her upstairs to my room. I went with her. She didn't make me."
"You didn't know what she was going to do."
"She took her clothes off and said I had to take mine off, too. I didn't want to but she called me a chicken, called me a fraidy cat. She touched me everywhere, made me touch her places, use my mouth on her. When I started to cry she said I was a sissy and she grabbed me, she grabbed my dick and she said if I didn't stop crying that one day it would shrivel up and shrink inside me and I'd turn into a girl."
Greg let out a slow breath. "Jesus, baby."
"When she was done she laughed at me, told me I cried like a little girl. She asked if my friends knew what a crybaby I was. I felt so ashamed. And dirty, just filthy. I took my bath and I turned the water up so hot and I scrubbed at my skin so hard and the feeling wouldn't go away. For months afterwards my mom joked that she had the only third grader in the world that actually wanted to take a bath. She never knew why, never knew I couldn't get clean no matter what I did."
"Oh, my baby," Greg murmured. "Oh, my sweet baby. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"It's not your fault." Nick's voice was flat.
"It's not yours, either." Greg took Nick's chin in his hand and turned his head so he could look into Nick's eyes. "You know that, don't you? That's it's not your fault?"
Nick nodded. "Intellectually, I guess, but—"
"You were a child, Nick. Younger even than the little boy you saw on the slab today. How were you supposed to be able to fight her?"
"It's not like she forced me. It's not like she threatened to hurt me."
"Yes, she did. Can you name one thing more terrifying to a nine year-old than being called names? Sissy, crybaby, queer, girl, chicken…Jesus. She might as well have held a gun to your head. She knew exactly what weapons to use to make you do what she wanted."
Nick sniffed. "Sometimes, I think…" He looked away and took a shaky breath.
"Sometimes you think what?" Greg asked, stroking the short hair at the nape of Nick's neck.
"That she made me this way. That if she hadn't…then maybe I'd be normal."
Greg kissed Nick's shoulder. "Define normal."
"Normal," Nick snapped. "You know, like other people. Not like this, not like…" He shook his head.
"Not like what?" Greg asked. "Not like you and me, you mean?"
"I didn't say that."
"You don't have to." He looked down at his hands. "It breaks my heart to know that you think we're abnormal, that you're ashamed of what we've got."
Nick looked over quickly. "No, Greg, I'm not—"
"Because falling in love with you was the easiest, most natural thing I've ever done in my life, and it happened in an instant. Did you know that? Did you know that I fell in love with you the first time I saw you?"
Nick shook his head. "I'm not ashamed of us, baby."
Greg nodded and leaned to kiss him. "It was my second day of work," he whispered, "and I was nervous, edgy. I didn't know if I could handle being so far from the ocean, my friends, everything I'd always known. And I was thinking about whether or not I could cut it on my own when you walked in. You and Warrick were arguing over a bet, and you were laughing and your smile just killed me. I felt it right in my gut, down to my knees. And I thought, 'I'm going to be in love with him for the rest of my life.'" He smiled. "And I was right."
"I don't know what I'd do without you, how I'd survive this without you. If we hadn't…if I had to face this case alone…"
"You don't have to face anything alone. Not anymore."
Nick nodded and slid the fingers of his left hand through Greg's, held them tight.
"I don't know if I can fix this," Greg whispered, "If I can fix what she did to you, if I can take away any of the pain but I'm going to try and it starts with this: you have nothing, absolutely nothing to be ashamed of."
"I could have stopped her."
"No."
"She didn't hold me down, didn't rough me up. She was just a teenage girl."
"And you were a child. Do you know what a nine year-old boy looks like standing next to a seventeen year-old girl? You didn't have a chance. She made sure you didn't have a chance. The shame's on her, Nick. None of it's yours."
"I feel like it's still inside of me. All that blackness. All that dirt."
"No, baby. You were never dirty. That was her twisting your head, making you think that there was something wrong with you."
"Maybe it was already there," Nick whispered. "Maybe I was already bad and she could just see it is all."
"No." Greg didn't know when he'd started crying but he could feel the tears hot on his cheeks. "It wasn't you. You said it yourself—we'll never know why people do what they do. Maybe somebody hurt her when she was a kid and she didn't know how to break the cycle. Maybe she was just fucked up. But it was never you."
"You don't know that. You can't know that."
"Yes I can." He threaded his fingers through Nick's hair. "You're a good man. I know that to be true. Look at what you do for a living—you spend your entire life helping other people. Look at the way you treated me when you found out about my past. You didn't run. You didn't push me away."
"But the sugar, Greg, I…"
It was the first time they'd really talked about it since it had happened, and as Nick said it Greg realized he wasn't angry anymore, not at all. "That doesn't matter now," he said. "You were scared and overreacted and I was scared so I overreacted back. It's called a fight, and every couple has them. We got through it, that's all that matters."
"I didn't want to think it, but it all seemed so fast. I thought it had to be too good to be true."
Greg smiled and tipped his forehead against Nick's. "I know. If you hadn't freaked out, then I would have over something just as small. It was bound to happen. What matters is that we didn't give up."
Nick nodded and leaned into Greg's embrace, let Greg lean him back and lay him on the bed. They became their usual tangle of arms and legs, foreheads pressed together, breathing slowed as they touched and caressed each other's face, shoulders, chest.
"I wonder," Nick whispered, "I know it's…I know that's not how it's supposed to work, but I still wonder if I'd like women if it hadn't happened."
"Did you like girls before?"
"I was nine. I thought they had cooties."
"I don't know about you," Greg whispered, "but when I look back at my life, even back into my childhood, I can see that I was always bi. I can see that I had crushes on boys and girls even in elementary school. I was in love with Roger, my first grade teacher."
"You called your teacher by his first name?"
"It was a progressive school," Greg said. "San Francisco, remember?"
Nick smiled.
"I didn't know what it was then, but as soon as I realized I was bi, it all made sense. The way my heart would race every time I saw him, the way I wanted to be close to him all the time, how jealous I was when he paid more attention to anyone else in the class. There were other crushes, too. Billy Pak was my best friend in fourth grade, and when I'd go for sleepovers we'd snuggle close together and hold hands. It wasn't sexual, just, you know, love."
Nick smiled slightly. "I thought you were in love with Tweet."
"I was. But I loved Billy, too. I just didn't know it until later. Don't you have anything like that, any memories that only made sense once you realized you were gay?"
"Well, I was pretty obsessed with Bo Duke. I told my mom once that I was going to marry him. She told me that boys didn't marry other boys, and I said that I had to marry him because otherwise he wouldn't let me drive the General Lee."
"We're born this way, Nick," Greg whispered. "And, fine, so I'm obviously biased in favor of DNA, but even if I knew nothing about genetics I'd still know it was true. Gender doesn't matter to me when I fall in love, and I was born like this. Why? Who knows? Maybe I was born to fall in love with you."
Nick took a shaky breath. "I know what you mean, now," he whispered, his voice thick with tears. "I know what you mean about being broken into a million pieces by just the words someone says."
Greg trailed his fingers along Nick's cheekbone. "I didn't mean to."
"It's OK. You were right about that, too. It's not bad at all."
They held each other for a long time, and Greg thought Nick had fallen asleep until he spoke again. "I spent so much time holding that in that I started to think if I told anyone the world would end."
"Did it?"
Nick shook his head. "No. I'm…I don't know how I feel. Relieved and shaky and fucked up. Not good, but better anyway. I think."
"If you feel like going for broke you can come to therapy with me on Tuesday."
"Let me guess, the General Lee symbolizes the penis."
Greg laughed softly. "It's not that kind of therapy."
"It doesn't feel weird?" Nick asked. "Telling a stranger all your personal business?"
"Well, my parents did start sending me to analysis when I was five, so I'm kind of used to it."
Nick laughed and slid his fingers through Greg's hair. "I'm sorry."
"It's all right. My analyst wasn't insane like they are. And I quit for a long time, stopped going when I was in high school and didn't start again until last year."
"Does it help?"
Greg nodded. "Yeah. They don't expect you to open up right away, you know. They give you time to trust them. And it's not like talking to a friend or anything because they're totally objective. You can tell them anything, good or bad, without having to worry about their reaction. You don't have to worry about how to phrase things so that nobody's feelings get hurt. And when else do you ever get the chance to just talk about yourself for an hour?"
"I never thought about it like that, I guess. I'm still not sure, though."
"You don't have to come with me, but despite my parents I think it's helpful. I could give you some names and you can call them if you ever feel like it's something you want to do. Or, you know, she doesn't usually work over the phone but I'm sure Annika would love to start analysis with you."
Nick laughed. "I don't know. I'm more partial to Jeff's theories of anal pleasure."
"Oh, God," Greg groaned. "I was always afraid to go into his office. I was afraid I'd accidentally run across some scat fetish magazines or something."
"Did you?"
"No. Thank God. But he does smoke on the toilet."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean he smokes when he's…you know. Releasing his bowels."
"Oh my God."
"He doesn't think we know, but those are two very specific smells and I decided a long time ago that I'm just going to stay in denial about the whole thing and not ever wonder what the connection between them is."
"I think that's a good idea," Nick said. "Not that I'm a big fan of putting five year olds into therapy, but I think with your parents, you probably needed it."
"Yeah. That's probably the only reason I never pipe bombed my high school."
"You could make a pipe bomb when you were in high school?"
Greg scoffed. "You know how simple they are. An eight year old could do it. I was far more complex than that."
"Well, you were running a meth lab at fifteen. I suppose that's some sort of twisted proof that you were a child genius."
Greg tweaked his nipple. "Asshole. And I was a child genius. Hell, I'm an adult genius, only nobody notices because I'm not socially inept."
"Do I hear a little bitterness in your voice? A little resentment towards a certain introverted entomologist?"
"Nah. Gris is cool, and people will acknowledge my brilliance eventually."
"Not to mention your modesty."
Greg kissed him quickly. "Yeah. That, too. Although…"
"What?"
"Well, I always kind of wondered, and since we're on the subject…"
"Fine, Greg, I acknowledge that you're brilliant."
"Well, that's good, but that's not what I was going to ask." Greg propped himself up on his elbow and peered down at Nick for a moment. "Did you guys ever…you know. Hook up?"
"What?" Nick asked.
"You know, was there ever, like, a thing going on between the two of you?"
"Me and Grissom?" Nick demanded, sitting up.
"You don't have to tell me, I just always thought that maybe…"
"No," Nick said. "No way, man. Are you serious?"
"Well, it would explain a lot of things."
Nick laughed. "Like what?"
"I don't know. Tension, I guess. Older man jilted by his hot young lover…"
"You’re insane."
"So there was never, like, a quick blow job in the parking lot or one night of unrestrained passion?"
"I can't believe you're even suggesting that. No. Nothing."
"Hmmm. Well, I still think he has the hots for you."
Nick snorted. "He has the hots for Sara."
"Jacqui and I were talking about that, and we don't think so. He used to have the hots for Sara, but we decided that now he's either madly in love with you, Warrick, or Catherine."
"Oh, you narrowed it down to three of us, did you?"
"Yeah."
"Lab techs have way too much time on their hands."
"Yeah, well, when you can run autosomal multiplexes in your sleep, you've got a lot of time to observe what's going on around you. It's not like what I do is that challenging, mentally."
"Says the genius."
Greg laughed and snuggled against him. "Take the sample, run the test. Take another sample, run another test. Take another sample, run a different test. It's boring, which is why we bounce theories off each other. Otherwise, we'd lose our minds."
"You definitely need more time in the field."
"You wanna tell Grissom that? I mean, if he's not still sore about you breaking his heart and all." He laughed and tried to squirm away when Nick began to tickle him. "OK, fine. Fine, I give. Uncle! You and Gris never had an affair!"
"Damn right we didn't," Nick said. He placed soft, feathery kisses along the curve of Greg's ear. "You think I'd risk my job for anybody else but you?"
"Mmmm." Greg shivered as Nick's lips closed around his earlobe. He curled his fingers around the back of Nick's neck. "You'd better not."
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-30 02:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-30 02:41 pm (UTC)Ok, not enough said. Yet another incredible chappie. Nick's pain. Greg's comfort. It's all so perfect! Keep it up darling, I love it!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-30 07:02 pm (UTC)You give me these funny feelings in my stomach, ya know..
I love the whole chem stuff you put in your chapters, makes it even more authentic (though you are so much in-character that I'd never think of it as just a fanfic).
Greg is even mire funny than on the show.
Yes, I said it.
And it was an honest statement.
See, I've always agreed with that explanation.
Why would they bring up Nick having been molested by a woman if they weren't going to finally reveal that he is gay?
Ohhh, September is coming..
no subject
Date: 2004-08-30 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-31 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-31 06:53 am (UTC)You handled this so well. I'm in awe. I'm quite possibly considering setting up a religion in your honour.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-01 09:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-01 11:21 pm (UTC)Whoa
Date: 2004-09-02 12:46 am (UTC)Leigh
buffygirl_66@yahoo.com