Fic: Nick/Greg: Lone Star 1/?, PG
Jun. 9th, 2005 11:23 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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nickngregIt's my new summer project - the one I've been secretly thinking about for two weeks. There was some construction to do.
Title: Lines in the Sand
Series: Lone Star, Chapter 1
Author: acroarcs
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own CSI or its characters.
Setting: Post-Grave Danger
Summary: Nick gets released, only to find himself in a big mess of family relations.
Notes: Get ready for the long haul. This one's really just a prologue.
Lines in the Sand
In many ways, the hospital was just another box. He lived in his bed. He lay there as doctors worked with his ant bites. He lay there while a psychologist came in to talk. He lay there when another doctor, satisfied that the ant bites would heal, put a cast on the arm he’d broken when they’d pulled him out of the box. He lay there while an endless stream of people came and went. Nurses, doctors, CSIs, his parents, his sisters. Greg.
He actually lived in a box inside a box. Some division of the Clark County bureaucracy shielded him from the press, but his family and coworkers shielded Clark County from him and Greg. He desperately needed Greg to be with him, so he hadn’t been upset that Greg, out of the same need, had let some of the crime lab in on the secret his family already knew. There were some things the county didn’t need to find out about, though, things the county would wish it didn’t know about even if it did find out, so there were precautions to be taken. Sara, Catherine, and his sister Tina worked out an impromptu surveillance system, then drafted Warrick into it as well. They made sure one of the four of them was always loitering outside Nick’s room whenever Greg was inside. That person was tasked with either distracting county officials out of coming in or getting a warning to Greg in time. Nick was pretty sure that Tina and Sara had added on a set of secret signals and codes. That was Tina’s style, and Sara would take to it like a duck to water.
They kept it up, even though the press had died down and the county workers had gone away. Everyone needed their own way to cope with what had happened.
For Nick, the first goal was to get out of the box.
***
“You want the wheelchair?” Greg asked.
“No,” Nick said. “I want to walk.”
“Are you sure?” Greg asked. “I could push it, you know.” He grinned, not as dirtily as usual, but the tone of voice was still there.
Nick glanced nervously at his mother. She was watching Greg intently, staring at him from across the bed as she stood on Nick’s other side. Yet another box inside a box, except this one was Nick between his mother and Greg. Or maybe it was between Greg and his mother. Nick’s father looked very at ease in a chair in the corner of the room. Sara watched impassively a few feet away from him.
“I know,” Nick said. “I just need to walk somewhere other than the bathroom.”
“All right,” Greg said. “Just don’t come crawling to me when you decide you wanted the chair after all.”
“I won’t,” Nick said. He sat up, bracing himself with his good right arm.
“Nick,” his mother said, “here.” She put a hand firmly between his shoulder blades to help hold him up, despite his efforts to wave her off with the cast on his left arm. He grudgingly took the help and slid off the bed. Greg had silently backed away from the bedside, his eyes firmly on Nick’s mother.
“I’m, uh, just going to go change,” he said to the room. “I’ll be in the bathroom.” He picked up a neatly folded pile of clothes from the counter next to where Sara was standing and shuffled into the adjoined bathroom, closing the door behind him.
When the door clicked shut, he let out an audible sigh. It was the only noise he could hear. Nick leaned back against the door, letting his head tilt back to hit it softly as he looked at the ceiling in frustration. They’d been like this the entire time he’d been awake, Greg and his mother. Quiet and watchful, each side observing the other like two opposing armies in an uneasy truce. Greg would march out onto the field and his mother would quietly pull back, waiting for an opportunity to move in elsewhere and force Greg away. Unfortunately, their battlefield of choice seemed to be the man they both loved.
The only respite came whenever there were several other CSIs in the room. Having just one wasn’t enough, as Sara’s presence in the chilly room showed. But two or three CSIs and a sister or two could carry on a conversation on their own, and everyone could pretend they were a part of it.
He tried forcing himself to sleep once to escape, but his dreams led him back to the underground box. He stopped trying after that.
Nick took off the hospital gown and started putting on normal clothing. The little details of the silent fight in the next room caught up to him here as well. Nick could tell Greg had folded the shirt – and picked out his favorite for Nick to wear, besides – while his mother had folded the pants. He could just imagine them at the house, going through the closet next to but not with each other.
Nick bet his father was having a wonderful time driving between the house and the hospital under those conditions. Actually, Greg was almost certainly driving separately.
Despite some problems with the cast, he finished dressing. The extra weight on his arm was going to take some getting used to. He looked himself over in the mirror. The ant bites were healing well; the doctor had said there’d be little to no scarring. The doctor had also said there wouldn’t be any other physical effects, but Nick thought he looked tired. More tired than he ought to after so long in a hospital bed.
He took a deep breath and opened the door again.
***
There was an endless amount of paperwork to review and sign before the hospital let him go. Form after form, signature after signature. In a continuation of their bedside manner, Greg and Nick’s mother stood on opposite sides of Nick as he went through the documents. Nick could almost feel his mother gloating as she put a hand on Nick’s shoulder while he checked a few boxes on a form. Greg couldn’t do that in the hospital lobby and she knew it.
He handed the papers back to the nurse. “All right,” he said, turning around. His mother’s hand stayed on him, ending up on the other shoulder from where she’d started. “I want to go home.”
“Then let’s get out of here,” Greg said with a smile as he put the strap of Nick’s personal item bag over his head. He patted Nick on the empty shoulder and the two fell into step immediately, headed for the elevators. Nick’s parents were close behind, with Sara and Tina bringing up the rear. Greg stayed right at the edge of what an outside observer would consider the correct personal distance away from Nick as they walked.
Even with just the slow speed of walking, the circulation of air around him made him feel more comfortable. “It’s good to be moving again.”
Greg gave him another smile. “I know,” he said. They reached the elevator and Greg pressed the call button. “By the way, forgot to tell you, I got a call from Linda this morning. She and Mike are flying in tomorrow to see you. She said she wished she could have come sooner, but Toby’s graduation was over the weekend in New Orleans.”
“Right,” Nick said, remembering that he and his sister had talked about it the week before. Toby was the second of her three, the second-oldest of Nick’s eleven nieces and nephews. “We ought to get a gift to send back with Linda.”
“We’ll get it taken care of,” Greg said. “Think of something good.”
A bell rang and the elevator doors opened. The four Stokeses, Greg, and Sara filed in. The doors shut, and Nick had a quick vision of plexiglass closing around him. His breath quickened.
“Sssh.” Greg’s hand slipped into his. “A gift for Toby, just think of a gift.”
“A gift,” Nick said weakly. How was there a layer of sweat between his hand and Greg’s? “He going to… he’s going to medical school.”
“He never could stand being like his brother,” Tina said. Nick glanced at her and she arched an eyebrow at him. “I wonder if that might run in the family.”
“That wasn’t because of Matt,” Nick said. “It was…” He stopped when he realized both his parents were looking directly at him.
His father shrugged. “It’s a choice you made for yourself, Nick. You didn’t want to go to law school, and we respect that.”
Nick’s mother nodded, but her facial expression was unreadable.
“Okay,” Nick said. The tension he felt eased a little, but he still held onto Greg’s hand. The elevator slowed to a stop and the doors opened. Nick felt the air start moving again but realized he was probably imagining it. He didn’t care. Imagining made him feel better.
“Sara and I are parked in the west garage,” Greg said as he walked out. Nick felt Greg’s fingers pull on his hand slightly and he moved away, his hand slipping out of Nick’s again now that they were out of the elevator.
“We’re in the east,” Nick’s father said as he dug his car keys out of his pocket. “We’ll see you back at the house, boys. Leah’s making dinner for Pancho’s homecoming.” He put an arm around Nick’s mother. “Jill? Shall we?”
“Just a moment, Bill,” she said, walking away from her husband. She put her arms around Nick, giving him a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek. “We’ll see you again in a little bit, sweetie.”
“All right, Mom,” Nick said. He gave her a kiss in return. She let go and returned to Bill motioning for them to go.
“In a bit, Nicky,” Tina said. She followed them toward the east garage, leaving Nick, Greg, and Sara standing together.
“So, Leah is…” Sara said, leaving the sentence hanging.
Nick started to answer, but before he could get a word in, Greg said, “The second-oldest. She and Nathan live in El Paso.”
Sara laughed. “I’m impressed, Greg.”
Greg shrugged and put an arm around Nick’s waist, giving him a quick squeeze before the arm dropped again. “They’re family.” He motioned for them to start walking.
“I thought you hadn’t met any of them before,” Sara said as they entered the garage.
“No, that’s really just his parents,” Greg said. “It all started with Tina. She came to town, what, last year, Nick?”
Nick shook his head. “Almost two years ago. She was here on business and just had to meet the guy I’d told her about on the phone.” He smiled, remembering how good it had felt to share that sort of information for the first time. “So we went to dinner, the three of us. Then she went back to Dallas and started calling everyone up, telling them all what a great find Greg was.”
“Andrea’s going to upset,” Greg said. He opened a door for a stairwell. “With Linda coming to town, she’ll be the only one who hasn’t met me.” He turned to Sara. “She and Jeff have two boys up in Boston, so they don’t go down to Texas very much. They were there this past Christmas, but…” He glanced over at Nick.
Nick sighed. “We don’t go to holidays at my parents’ place in Austin,” he said. “Two Thanksgivings ago, my mother said I could only come if I didn’t bring Greg, so we went to Greg’s parents' house in California instead. Then we spent Christmas in El Paso with Leah.” He followed Greg out a door on a different floor of the garage, Sara following behind him. He recognized both their cars a short walk away. “Sara,” he said. “If you want to come over for dinner, we can give Leah a call to warn her. I’m sure she’s made enough, anyway.”
Sara smiled at him before reaching out and hugging him. “Thanks, Nick, but you probably ought to have just family there.” She emphasized the word ‘family’ with a larger smile and a pointed glance at Greg. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Can you let Warrick, Catherine, and anyone else know that I’m out and all right?”
“That part,” Greg interrupted, “is already taken care of. Warrick and Catherine are stopping by the house after their shift. Provided it doesn’t run over, of course.”
All three of them smiled at that. “I’ll probably see them next week, then,” Nick said. They finished their walk to the cars. “Thanks for being here, Sara.”
“Of course,” she said, opening her door. “Tomorrow.” She disappeared into the car, which turned on a moment later. She pulled out and drove away.
“And now it’s just you and me,” Greg said. He smiled and leaned over, giving Nick a quick kiss. “Let’s go home.”
***
Greg was driving one-handed and playing with the fingers sticking out of Nick’s cast when a ringing sound filled the car. Nick heard Greg grumble as used his free hand to dig his cell phone out of his pocket. He glanced at the identification on the phone and clicked to answer.
“Hi, Leah,” Greg said. Nick shook his head. Everyone was being so careful to keep him away from any potential stress or disturbance or something that his sisters were all calling Greg instead of him. He let Greg talk as he stared out the window at a sky he hadn’t seen in days.
“We’re almost there,” Greg was continuing. A pause. “No, we can do that. Why?” Another pause. “Yeah. No, it’s a good idea. We’ll take our time, don’t worry. See you in a while.” He hung up the phone, putting it in his lap.
“We’re taking the scenic route home, apparently,” Greg said, rolling his eyes.
“Why?” Nick asked. “What was that about?”
“Apparently the press isn’t done yet,” Greg said. “Some reporter from the Austin American-Statesman just showed up at our house, looking for your dad. Nathan’s busy telling him to go screw himself. Leah thought it’d be smart if your parents and the two of us just stayed away until he’s gone.”
“A reporter from Austin?” Nick asked, confused.
“I don’t know,” Greg said with a shrug. He turned around for a moment to check next to him as he changed lanes. “Probably just trying to find out why your dad suddenly gathered $20,000 in cash, put a bank on notice for more, and flew to Las Vegas. It’d be news if a Texas Supreme Court justice went on a gambling spree, wouldn’t it?”
“It could look that way, couldn’t it?” Nick said, laughing. He stopped. “$20,000 in cash?”
“You didn’t know?” Greg asked. His free hand finally found its way back to Nick’s fingers. “Your parents brought it for the… for the situation. They’re keeping a lot of it now, obviously, but that’s the money that’s bringing all of your family to Vegas.”
“So then Matt…” Nick stopped mid-sentence.
“Matt says he can’t get away from work,” Greg said.
Nick was surprised. “You talked to Matt?”
“To Stephanie,” Greg said. “She said she told him to come. She said your dad told him to come. Even your mom called him just to tell him to come.”
Nick frowned. Despite being so different from each other, he and Matt had been so close until he’d told his brother he was gay. Now the only time Matt peaked over the wall he’d built around himself was for awkward phone calls on Christmas and Nick’s birthday, which was another reason he and Greg didn’t go to Austin for holidays. He only got occasional news from Stephanie, Matt’s wife.
“Mom told him to fly out?” he asked.
“Apparently,” Greg said. “She may not like me, but she still loves you.”
“She tells herself she does, anyway,” Nick said, twisting his mouth in distaste.
Greg drove straight through the intersection where he normally would have turned left to go into their neighborhood. “I’m not going to disagree with that,” he said. “But it’s still an awful thing to say.”
The phone rang again, and Greg picked it up. “Hey, everything clear?” he said. After the other person replied, he added, “Okay then, it’ll just be a few minutes.” He hung up and moved into the left turn lane at the next traffic light. “Nathan was very efficient,” he said.
“I can imagine,” Nick said. He paused for a second, thinking, then moved his entire arm, cast and all, so that his hand rested in Greg’s lap. He tried to squeeze Greg’s thigh, even though the cast blocked some of his hand’s mobility. “Thanks, Greg,” he said.
Greg looked at him. “For what?”
“For driving me home, for staying by my side, for putting up with my mother. All sorts of things,” Nick said. “But basically, just… thanks.”
Greg brought Nick’s hand up to his mouth and kissed the exposed fingers before setting it back down on his lap. “It’s what I do,” he said. Nick gave Greg’s thigh what he thought was a final squeeze before he tried to pull it away, but Greg’s hand came down on top of his. “Leave it there,” he said.
Nick did, up until they pulled into the driveway of one very crowded house. His jeep sat in the driveway with three rental cars lined up along the curb in front. They got out of the car, Greg picking up Nick’s bag again, and went in the door. Leah, clad in an apron, immediately threw her arms around Nick, welcoming him home, while her husband Nathan gave him a good handshake. The others – Tina and his parents – he’d just seen at the hospital, but his sister invited herself to a hug anyway. As always, Tina made Nick happy.
His father, though, cleared his throat and said, “Pancho, I think we need to talk about something.” That made Nick a little confused.
And his mother just smiled at him, looking for all the world like she’d just won a prize. That definitely made Nick worried.
Title: Lines in the Sand
Series: Lone Star, Chapter 1
Author: acroarcs
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own CSI or its characters.
Setting: Post-Grave Danger
Summary: Nick gets released, only to find himself in a big mess of family relations.
Notes: Get ready for the long haul. This one's really just a prologue.
Lines in the Sand
In many ways, the hospital was just another box. He lived in his bed. He lay there as doctors worked with his ant bites. He lay there while a psychologist came in to talk. He lay there when another doctor, satisfied that the ant bites would heal, put a cast on the arm he’d broken when they’d pulled him out of the box. He lay there while an endless stream of people came and went. Nurses, doctors, CSIs, his parents, his sisters. Greg.
He actually lived in a box inside a box. Some division of the Clark County bureaucracy shielded him from the press, but his family and coworkers shielded Clark County from him and Greg. He desperately needed Greg to be with him, so he hadn’t been upset that Greg, out of the same need, had let some of the crime lab in on the secret his family already knew. There were some things the county didn’t need to find out about, though, things the county would wish it didn’t know about even if it did find out, so there were precautions to be taken. Sara, Catherine, and his sister Tina worked out an impromptu surveillance system, then drafted Warrick into it as well. They made sure one of the four of them was always loitering outside Nick’s room whenever Greg was inside. That person was tasked with either distracting county officials out of coming in or getting a warning to Greg in time. Nick was pretty sure that Tina and Sara had added on a set of secret signals and codes. That was Tina’s style, and Sara would take to it like a duck to water.
They kept it up, even though the press had died down and the county workers had gone away. Everyone needed their own way to cope with what had happened.
For Nick, the first goal was to get out of the box.
***
“You want the wheelchair?” Greg asked.
“No,” Nick said. “I want to walk.”
“Are you sure?” Greg asked. “I could push it, you know.” He grinned, not as dirtily as usual, but the tone of voice was still there.
Nick glanced nervously at his mother. She was watching Greg intently, staring at him from across the bed as she stood on Nick’s other side. Yet another box inside a box, except this one was Nick between his mother and Greg. Or maybe it was between Greg and his mother. Nick’s father looked very at ease in a chair in the corner of the room. Sara watched impassively a few feet away from him.
“I know,” Nick said. “I just need to walk somewhere other than the bathroom.”
“All right,” Greg said. “Just don’t come crawling to me when you decide you wanted the chair after all.”
“I won’t,” Nick said. He sat up, bracing himself with his good right arm.
“Nick,” his mother said, “here.” She put a hand firmly between his shoulder blades to help hold him up, despite his efforts to wave her off with the cast on his left arm. He grudgingly took the help and slid off the bed. Greg had silently backed away from the bedside, his eyes firmly on Nick’s mother.
“I’m, uh, just going to go change,” he said to the room. “I’ll be in the bathroom.” He picked up a neatly folded pile of clothes from the counter next to where Sara was standing and shuffled into the adjoined bathroom, closing the door behind him.
When the door clicked shut, he let out an audible sigh. It was the only noise he could hear. Nick leaned back against the door, letting his head tilt back to hit it softly as he looked at the ceiling in frustration. They’d been like this the entire time he’d been awake, Greg and his mother. Quiet and watchful, each side observing the other like two opposing armies in an uneasy truce. Greg would march out onto the field and his mother would quietly pull back, waiting for an opportunity to move in elsewhere and force Greg away. Unfortunately, their battlefield of choice seemed to be the man they both loved.
The only respite came whenever there were several other CSIs in the room. Having just one wasn’t enough, as Sara’s presence in the chilly room showed. But two or three CSIs and a sister or two could carry on a conversation on their own, and everyone could pretend they were a part of it.
He tried forcing himself to sleep once to escape, but his dreams led him back to the underground box. He stopped trying after that.
Nick took off the hospital gown and started putting on normal clothing. The little details of the silent fight in the next room caught up to him here as well. Nick could tell Greg had folded the shirt – and picked out his favorite for Nick to wear, besides – while his mother had folded the pants. He could just imagine them at the house, going through the closet next to but not with each other.
Nick bet his father was having a wonderful time driving between the house and the hospital under those conditions. Actually, Greg was almost certainly driving separately.
Despite some problems with the cast, he finished dressing. The extra weight on his arm was going to take some getting used to. He looked himself over in the mirror. The ant bites were healing well; the doctor had said there’d be little to no scarring. The doctor had also said there wouldn’t be any other physical effects, but Nick thought he looked tired. More tired than he ought to after so long in a hospital bed.
He took a deep breath and opened the door again.
***
There was an endless amount of paperwork to review and sign before the hospital let him go. Form after form, signature after signature. In a continuation of their bedside manner, Greg and Nick’s mother stood on opposite sides of Nick as he went through the documents. Nick could almost feel his mother gloating as she put a hand on Nick’s shoulder while he checked a few boxes on a form. Greg couldn’t do that in the hospital lobby and she knew it.
He handed the papers back to the nurse. “All right,” he said, turning around. His mother’s hand stayed on him, ending up on the other shoulder from where she’d started. “I want to go home.”
“Then let’s get out of here,” Greg said with a smile as he put the strap of Nick’s personal item bag over his head. He patted Nick on the empty shoulder and the two fell into step immediately, headed for the elevators. Nick’s parents were close behind, with Sara and Tina bringing up the rear. Greg stayed right at the edge of what an outside observer would consider the correct personal distance away from Nick as they walked.
Even with just the slow speed of walking, the circulation of air around him made him feel more comfortable. “It’s good to be moving again.”
Greg gave him another smile. “I know,” he said. They reached the elevator and Greg pressed the call button. “By the way, forgot to tell you, I got a call from Linda this morning. She and Mike are flying in tomorrow to see you. She said she wished she could have come sooner, but Toby’s graduation was over the weekend in New Orleans.”
“Right,” Nick said, remembering that he and his sister had talked about it the week before. Toby was the second of her three, the second-oldest of Nick’s eleven nieces and nephews. “We ought to get a gift to send back with Linda.”
“We’ll get it taken care of,” Greg said. “Think of something good.”
A bell rang and the elevator doors opened. The four Stokeses, Greg, and Sara filed in. The doors shut, and Nick had a quick vision of plexiglass closing around him. His breath quickened.
“Sssh.” Greg’s hand slipped into his. “A gift for Toby, just think of a gift.”
“A gift,” Nick said weakly. How was there a layer of sweat between his hand and Greg’s? “He going to… he’s going to medical school.”
“He never could stand being like his brother,” Tina said. Nick glanced at her and she arched an eyebrow at him. “I wonder if that might run in the family.”
“That wasn’t because of Matt,” Nick said. “It was…” He stopped when he realized both his parents were looking directly at him.
His father shrugged. “It’s a choice you made for yourself, Nick. You didn’t want to go to law school, and we respect that.”
Nick’s mother nodded, but her facial expression was unreadable.
“Okay,” Nick said. The tension he felt eased a little, but he still held onto Greg’s hand. The elevator slowed to a stop and the doors opened. Nick felt the air start moving again but realized he was probably imagining it. He didn’t care. Imagining made him feel better.
“Sara and I are parked in the west garage,” Greg said as he walked out. Nick felt Greg’s fingers pull on his hand slightly and he moved away, his hand slipping out of Nick’s again now that they were out of the elevator.
“We’re in the east,” Nick’s father said as he dug his car keys out of his pocket. “We’ll see you back at the house, boys. Leah’s making dinner for Pancho’s homecoming.” He put an arm around Nick’s mother. “Jill? Shall we?”
“Just a moment, Bill,” she said, walking away from her husband. She put her arms around Nick, giving him a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek. “We’ll see you again in a little bit, sweetie.”
“All right, Mom,” Nick said. He gave her a kiss in return. She let go and returned to Bill motioning for them to go.
“In a bit, Nicky,” Tina said. She followed them toward the east garage, leaving Nick, Greg, and Sara standing together.
“So, Leah is…” Sara said, leaving the sentence hanging.
Nick started to answer, but before he could get a word in, Greg said, “The second-oldest. She and Nathan live in El Paso.”
Sara laughed. “I’m impressed, Greg.”
Greg shrugged and put an arm around Nick’s waist, giving him a quick squeeze before the arm dropped again. “They’re family.” He motioned for them to start walking.
“I thought you hadn’t met any of them before,” Sara said as they entered the garage.
“No, that’s really just his parents,” Greg said. “It all started with Tina. She came to town, what, last year, Nick?”
Nick shook his head. “Almost two years ago. She was here on business and just had to meet the guy I’d told her about on the phone.” He smiled, remembering how good it had felt to share that sort of information for the first time. “So we went to dinner, the three of us. Then she went back to Dallas and started calling everyone up, telling them all what a great find Greg was.”
“Andrea’s going to upset,” Greg said. He opened a door for a stairwell. “With Linda coming to town, she’ll be the only one who hasn’t met me.” He turned to Sara. “She and Jeff have two boys up in Boston, so they don’t go down to Texas very much. They were there this past Christmas, but…” He glanced over at Nick.
Nick sighed. “We don’t go to holidays at my parents’ place in Austin,” he said. “Two Thanksgivings ago, my mother said I could only come if I didn’t bring Greg, so we went to Greg’s parents' house in California instead. Then we spent Christmas in El Paso with Leah.” He followed Greg out a door on a different floor of the garage, Sara following behind him. He recognized both their cars a short walk away. “Sara,” he said. “If you want to come over for dinner, we can give Leah a call to warn her. I’m sure she’s made enough, anyway.”
Sara smiled at him before reaching out and hugging him. “Thanks, Nick, but you probably ought to have just family there.” She emphasized the word ‘family’ with a larger smile and a pointed glance at Greg. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Can you let Warrick, Catherine, and anyone else know that I’m out and all right?”
“That part,” Greg interrupted, “is already taken care of. Warrick and Catherine are stopping by the house after their shift. Provided it doesn’t run over, of course.”
All three of them smiled at that. “I’ll probably see them next week, then,” Nick said. They finished their walk to the cars. “Thanks for being here, Sara.”
“Of course,” she said, opening her door. “Tomorrow.” She disappeared into the car, which turned on a moment later. She pulled out and drove away.
“And now it’s just you and me,” Greg said. He smiled and leaned over, giving Nick a quick kiss. “Let’s go home.”
***
Greg was driving one-handed and playing with the fingers sticking out of Nick’s cast when a ringing sound filled the car. Nick heard Greg grumble as used his free hand to dig his cell phone out of his pocket. He glanced at the identification on the phone and clicked to answer.
“Hi, Leah,” Greg said. Nick shook his head. Everyone was being so careful to keep him away from any potential stress or disturbance or something that his sisters were all calling Greg instead of him. He let Greg talk as he stared out the window at a sky he hadn’t seen in days.
“We’re almost there,” Greg was continuing. A pause. “No, we can do that. Why?” Another pause. “Yeah. No, it’s a good idea. We’ll take our time, don’t worry. See you in a while.” He hung up the phone, putting it in his lap.
“We’re taking the scenic route home, apparently,” Greg said, rolling his eyes.
“Why?” Nick asked. “What was that about?”
“Apparently the press isn’t done yet,” Greg said. “Some reporter from the Austin American-Statesman just showed up at our house, looking for your dad. Nathan’s busy telling him to go screw himself. Leah thought it’d be smart if your parents and the two of us just stayed away until he’s gone.”
“A reporter from Austin?” Nick asked, confused.
“I don’t know,” Greg said with a shrug. He turned around for a moment to check next to him as he changed lanes. “Probably just trying to find out why your dad suddenly gathered $20,000 in cash, put a bank on notice for more, and flew to Las Vegas. It’d be news if a Texas Supreme Court justice went on a gambling spree, wouldn’t it?”
“It could look that way, couldn’t it?” Nick said, laughing. He stopped. “$20,000 in cash?”
“You didn’t know?” Greg asked. His free hand finally found its way back to Nick’s fingers. “Your parents brought it for the… for the situation. They’re keeping a lot of it now, obviously, but that’s the money that’s bringing all of your family to Vegas.”
“So then Matt…” Nick stopped mid-sentence.
“Matt says he can’t get away from work,” Greg said.
Nick was surprised. “You talked to Matt?”
“To Stephanie,” Greg said. “She said she told him to come. She said your dad told him to come. Even your mom called him just to tell him to come.”
Nick frowned. Despite being so different from each other, he and Matt had been so close until he’d told his brother he was gay. Now the only time Matt peaked over the wall he’d built around himself was for awkward phone calls on Christmas and Nick’s birthday, which was another reason he and Greg didn’t go to Austin for holidays. He only got occasional news from Stephanie, Matt’s wife.
“Mom told him to fly out?” he asked.
“Apparently,” Greg said. “She may not like me, but she still loves you.”
“She tells herself she does, anyway,” Nick said, twisting his mouth in distaste.
Greg drove straight through the intersection where he normally would have turned left to go into their neighborhood. “I’m not going to disagree with that,” he said. “But it’s still an awful thing to say.”
The phone rang again, and Greg picked it up. “Hey, everything clear?” he said. After the other person replied, he added, “Okay then, it’ll just be a few minutes.” He hung up and moved into the left turn lane at the next traffic light. “Nathan was very efficient,” he said.
“I can imagine,” Nick said. He paused for a second, thinking, then moved his entire arm, cast and all, so that his hand rested in Greg’s lap. He tried to squeeze Greg’s thigh, even though the cast blocked some of his hand’s mobility. “Thanks, Greg,” he said.
Greg looked at him. “For what?”
“For driving me home, for staying by my side, for putting up with my mother. All sorts of things,” Nick said. “But basically, just… thanks.”
Greg brought Nick’s hand up to his mouth and kissed the exposed fingers before setting it back down on his lap. “It’s what I do,” he said. Nick gave Greg’s thigh what he thought was a final squeeze before he tried to pull it away, but Greg’s hand came down on top of his. “Leave it there,” he said.
Nick did, up until they pulled into the driveway of one very crowded house. His jeep sat in the driveway with three rental cars lined up along the curb in front. They got out of the car, Greg picking up Nick’s bag again, and went in the door. Leah, clad in an apron, immediately threw her arms around Nick, welcoming him home, while her husband Nathan gave him a good handshake. The others – Tina and his parents – he’d just seen at the hospital, but his sister invited herself to a hug anyway. As always, Tina made Nick happy.
His father, though, cleared his throat and said, “Pancho, I think we need to talk about something.” That made Nick a little confused.
And his mother just smiled at him, looking for all the world like she’d just won a prize. That definitely made Nick worried.
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Date: 2005-06-09 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-10 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-09 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-10 02:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-09 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-10 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-09 04:28 pm (UTC)Nick seems to be almost numb. The tension bothers him but he's not showing any huge reaction to it, which in my inexperience is an honest and human reaction.
And lastly, Greg's maturity is showing! Thank you, I'm so protective of Greg... I cringe when he gets turned into a teenage girl around Nick.
Can't wait for the next part!
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Date: 2005-06-10 02:26 pm (UTC)Heh. Not just trying to steal - already stolen. That bastard Greg. There's definitely no love lost there.
On Nick, one of the main things I've always thought about Nick is his penchant for backing away from conflict (most of the time). Especially since there's so much other crap going on right now, I thought this was how he might react. And given Greg's personality and abilities - I think he could handle coordinating all seventeen gazillion Stokeses while simultaneously doing battle with Nick's mom - it's a place Nick doesn't really feel the need to worry about too much. Still gives him a headache, though.
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Date: 2005-06-09 06:12 pm (UTC)*looks around* Why is there no more! I need more!
Hee. This is really great. Nick's mom is an ass. But it seems like one of the more realistic fics out there. Totally nailed how I believe everyone would react to finding out about Nicky and Greg.
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Date: 2005-06-10 02:29 pm (UTC)Also, thanks. I'm trying for realism. Or, at least, as real as I can get, not coming from a seven child family myself. I have seen my share of vindictive mothers, though. Not mine, mind you, but Nick's is modeled on an ex-boyfriend's.
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Date: 2005-06-09 06:24 pm (UTC)P.s I love this ^^
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Date: 2005-06-10 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-10 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-09 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-10 02:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-09 09:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-10 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-09 10:24 pm (UTC)~x~
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Date: 2005-06-10 02:36 pm (UTC)Working on it. I got through this despite horrible time commitments at work, so I think I can get through more.
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Date: 2005-06-10 05:07 am (UTC)Buckling in.
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Date: 2005-06-10 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-10 02:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-10 07:03 am (UTC)What I really find interesting, though, is your take on his relationship with his parents. Most of the fic I've seen has his mother as a sweet and understanding person, while his father is this stern unforgiving...well you get the idea. I like his father in this, so far. And I like his sisters...and I like the more complicated family dynamic that you're presenting here.
I'm look forward to reading more.
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Date: 2005-06-10 02:45 pm (UTC)The complicated family dynamic is really complicated to deal with! I have notes on a family timeline (who was born when and where, who got married and had kids, who moved where) that I'm constantly referring back to now that I have it. Fortunately, for the relationships between all of them, I already know a family with six children, five of them girls. So I just added Nick onto the bottom of the list and projected all of their relationships into the future. It's no accident that the one who's figured the most in helping Nick over the years (Tina) is the third child or that the only other boy (Matt) is the fifth. I did change all the names, though.
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Date: 2005-06-11 07:05 am (UTC)