Fic: Nick/Greg: Lone Star 2/?, PG-13
Jun. 13th, 2005 09:49 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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nickngregTitle: Wayward Child
Series: Lone Star, Chapter 2
Author: acroarcs
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: Let's go with 13
Disclaimer: Don't own CSI or the characters.
Setting: Post-GD
Summary: Nick's dad makes him angry, Nick's sister makes him dinner, and Nick's mom makes everyone miserable.
Notes: I decided I liked having the drabblish opening for the first chapter, so I'm keeping that format. It's the cheater's way of getting out of writing a real opening.
1: Lines in the Sand
Wayward Child
One thing Nick had tried to explain to Greg several times is how for a Texan, every piece of Texas is home. How the state feels like it has a life of its own, how it feels like a living, breathing entity that fills every acre of desert, grassland, or forest from the Rio Grande to the Red River, from the Panhandle to the Gulf Coast.
Greg just thought it was crazy. When Nick had let out a breath of relief as their plane touched down at El Paso International two Christmases before, saying how good it was to be home again, Greg had pointed out that Nick had never lived in El Paso. When Nick had attempted his explanation, Greg had made some comparison with Los Angeles and San Francisco, saying that one felt like home and the other didn’t.
Short of having Greg move to Texas, something he didn’t think he’d ever try anyway, Nick didn’t think he’d ever find a way to get the point through to him. So Greg had just shaken his head when they’d gone to San Antonio to see Beth, just like he’d do if they ever went to Austin, not understanding that it didn’t matter where in Texas the city was, just that the city was in Texas. Not understanding that he got the same joy and the same pain of going home each time, each place.
Not understanding that the living, breathing entity could also reach across New Mexico and Arizona to find its wayward child in Las Vegas.
***
“Can’t that wait until after dinner, Dad?” Tina asked. Nick saw her eyes move toward him, widening slightly. For over thirty years, that signal had been her way to warn Nick of unexpected trouble, telling him to duck and hide while he had the chance.
Despite her warning, Nick saw no way out of this, even though he had no idea what this was. His father ignored Tina’s question and motioned for Nick to follow him the spare bedroom. Nick trailed behind him, feeling everyone’s eyes on him as he went.
The bedroom felt smaller than usual. Normally he and Greg only used the room as a makeshift office. A computer sat on a small desk next to a set of bookshelves which held months and years worth of forensic and other scientific journals. They’d really only put a bed in here because they had an extra from the time before they’d moved in together, but his parents were definitely using it now. Instead of the nearly-straightened state Greg left it in after sitting and reading books and magazines on it, it was immaculately made without a crease or wrinkle to be seen.
Nick closed the door and sat down on the bed.
His father took the chair at the computer desk, moving it out and sitting on it backwards, legs tucked underneath the adjustable back and arms folded on the top. “I know this isn’t an easy time for you,” he said. He stopped, casting his eyes down to the floor.
“No,” Nick said. He looked his father in the eyes in spite of the lack of eye contact from the other side. “But you didn’t get me in here to talk about that, did you?”
“No, no, I didn’t,” his father said. He fell silent again.
“Well,” Nick said. He set his left arm on the footboard of the bed, making a solid knocking sound when the cast met the wood. “The only thing that’s happened since we left the hospital is a reporter from Austin coming by. And whatever you’re about to say, Mom’s really happy about, so you might as well just get it out as quickly as possible.”
“Your mother’s happy about what she thinks I’m going to say,” Nick’s father said. “But she’s convinced herself I’m going to tell you Greg needs to move out.”
“Why would she think that?”
“The reporter’s probably Steve Kemper,” Nick’s father said. He sat up, no longer leaning on the back of the chair. “He covers the court. And if he finds out about you and Greg, he’ll also find a lot of interested ears back in Austin.”
Nick crossed his arms. “What does it matter to people in Austin what someone in Las Vegas does?”
“It doesn’t,” his father said. “But it matters what the son of a judge who’s up for reelection this year does.”
“This is stupid,” Nick said. He stood up and walked across the room. “Even if they did care, you know as well as I do that the elections barely matter and no one pays them any attention. You might even run unopposed.”
“They matter if the party finds someone to replace me on the ballot.”
“You think they’d do that.”
“They might.” Nick’s father turned the chair to face him. “They’ll decide I have a personal bias they don’t want to see on the court.”
Nick felt his eyes narrow in anger. “I’m not changing anything Greg and I are doing so you can feel more comfortable about your politics,” he said.
“I’m not asking you…” his father started, but Nick cut him off.
“And,” he said sharply, “the idea that you’d even think about compromising your judgment so that you can stay on a court makes me sick.”
“I’m just asking you to keep being careful, Pancho.”
Nick walked over to the door. “You ask me for that reason, you can call me Nick.” His hand went to the doorknob. “Don’t talk to Greg about this. I’d like it if he had a chance of liking my family.” He opened the door and walked out into the hallway. He could hear his mother talking in the living room, so he went the other direction, going into his and Greg’s bedroom.
He shut the door and sat on this bed as well. His breathing had gone erratic again, like in the elevator in the hospital, and he concentrated on calming himself down. One breath in, one breath out. One breath in. Hold. Hold. Hold. One breath out. There was a light knock on the door before it opened.
“I saw your dad,” Greg said. “Didn’t see you.”
“Came in here,” Nick said. He checked his breathing. It felt normal again.
“Tina said that whatever your dad was saying wouldn’t be good,” Greg went on. Nick shook with a sharp, laughing grunt. “What?”
“I told him not to say anything to you,” Nick said. “Didn’t figure on Tina. I should’ve.”
“She also said your mom wants me gone.” Greg sat down on the bed next to Nick. “I guess that’s not a big surprise, though.” He stopped for a moment. “Shit, Nick, this is probably exactly what you don’t need right now.”
“It could be better,” Nick admitted. He turned to look Greg in the face. “You know, he’s never said anything about it before.”
“What do you mean?”
“My dad,” Nick said. “When I told him I was gay, he just stopped and looked at me for a second, then asked if I’d seen the Cowboys game the week before. I knew I had to tell him and then he just changed the subject immediately. And then I’d been so scared of what could have happened that I took it to mean he didn’t care, didn’t think it was important.”
“And now?”
“Now I just don’t know,” Nick said. “He’s concerned about this reporter because of his election, of all things. So now I know what he thinks publicly, at least.”
“He’s here, isn’t he?” Greg asked. He reached up to Nick’s forehead and wiped off sweat Nick hadn’t known was there.
“So’s my mother,” Nick said. “And I think we know how she feels.”
“We need more evidence, then,” Greg said. Nick cocked his head to the side at him. “What?” Greg asked. “It’s true, even if it sounds like work. Come on, Leah’s almost finished with dinner.”
They walked together down the hallway and into the living room, where Nathan had a baseball game on the television. Nick’s mother was pretending to watch the game, but Nick could see that she was actually watching him walk through the room in spite of which direction her face was pointing. Her eyes looked focused on where Greg’s hand rested on his back, and her self-satisfied smile crumbled just a small amount. Nick’s father was watching them as well, his face mixing both disappointment and apology. Nick and Greg continued into the dining room.
There were seven chairs arranged around the table, one at each end, two on one side, and three on the other. Tina was already seated at the center of the table, while a glass of ice and a can of Diet Coke indicated that Leah had claimed a chair on the other side. “Nicky,” she said, “why don’t you take the head of the table next to Leah? It is your house, after all, and she wants to see your face while you eat her cooking.”
Nick laughed. “If it’s anything like it was when I was little, she won’t be too happy about that,” he said. In his head, though, he was laughing at how his sisters were choreographing the seating. Greg would sit between him and Tina and Nathan would naturally sit next to Leah, so the only two seats left would be his parents’. There was no way his mother would take the end of the table while his father was there, so she’d be on the other side of Tina from Greg and they wouldn’t even be able to see each other while they ate. In the meantime, he’d be next to Greg and as far away from his parents as possible. He wondered if they’d planned it together or if they’d just set it up without talking about it. Neither would surprise him.
Greg slipped into the chair on his right and set a hand on his knee while Leah emerged from the kitchen to call the others to the table. Nick grinned as they sat exactly as he’d predicted. He grinned even more when Leah brought a platter of pork chops to the table.
“I’d’ve made ribs, but I didn’t know if you’d want sauce dripping down into your cast,” she said as she held it in front of Nick so he could serve himself. She passed the tray to Greg.
“No complaints here,” Nick said. “Thanks.”
She disappeared into the kitchen again, this time returning with potato salad. The third time she brought cornbread. In the meantime, Tina was steering the conversation at the table, making small talk about the visit Chris, Linda’s oldest son, had made to Dallas the month before, about how wonderful Leah’s cooking was (with a snide remark that it hadn’t been as good thirty years before), about things she ought to do while she was in Las Vegas now that Nick was out of the hospital.
Leah reciprocated with gratitude at the compliment (with a snide remark that Tina’s cooking hadn’t improved at all in thirty years) and with speculation that she, Tina, and Linda ought to have a girls’ night in Vegas while they were all there anyway. Nick could barely hear his father and Nathan talking about the Rangers at the other end of the table. Leah was about to launch into a story about something that had happened at work when Nick’s mother loudly asked, “So, where will Greg be staying?”
Nick watched as his knife slowed to a stop in the middle of his pork chop before he forced himself to keep cutting. The other conversations had stopped. “Here,” he said, not bothering to look up. “Why would he leave?” He put a piece of pork chop in his mouth.
“I thought that…” his mother said.
“Mom,” Tina said softly. She gently set a hand on the table in front of her mother.
Mrs. Stokes went on anyway. “I thought that you and your father had agreed Greg should leave.”
“No,” Nick said, cutting another piece of pork. “I think that was just you. Unless Greg wants to leave.”
“No,” Greg said flatly. Nick glanced up from his plate. Greg’s face was blank and emotionless.
“See?” Nick said. “I think that settles it.” He went back to his dinner, sparing some time for a look around the table as he put the next piece of meat in his mouth.
No one was moving.
“Why don’t I get dessert?” Leah asked, breaking the silence.
Nick’s mother started to talk again, but Tina put her hand down more emphatically and Leah stood and stared her down. She turned to look at Nick’s father, but his eyes were on his plate.
“I’ll help you,” Greg said quickly. He stood, stalking off into the kitchen. Leah motioned for Nick to stay put and followed him.
“Thanks, Mom,” Nick said.
“Sweetie, if you’d just realize that your choices have consequences for other people, things would go a lot better.” She turned in her chair, taking a forkful of potato salad as if that were the end of the discussion.
Nick felt like growling under his breath, but he held it in. If his mother was willing to let it go at that, he was willing to let her stop there instead of waiting to hear what else she might say. He settled for another piece of cornbread, but he’d only taken one bite of it before he got up and went to look for Greg.
Neither Leah nor Greg was in the kitchen, but he could see Leah out on the back porch through a window. He went to the door and quietly opened it, seeing Greg as well. Both of them looked over as he walked outside, Greg from the bench along the wall, Leah from where she stood.
“So none of us turned out the way she wanted,” Leah said, turning back to Greg, “and it’s just Nick’s bad luck that he’s the youngest.”
“Hey, it had to be someone,” Nick said. He sat down on the bench next to Greg, carefully putting his left arm around Greg’s shoulders. Greg leaned into his chest. Leah went back inside.
“It doesn’t matter if she’s got a reason,” Greg said. “It still pisses me off.”
“I know,” Nick said quietly. He kissed the top of Greg’s head. “I’m going to try and get them to leave. I’m supposed to be recovering, right?”
Greg laughed.
“I’ve missed that,” Nick said. “That right there.”
“There hasn’t been a lot to laugh or smile about lately,” Greg sighed. He sat up and turned to look at Nick. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too,” Nick said. He pulled Greg back in to hold on to him tightly. “And I’m not letting anyone take you away from me.”
“That’s all well and good,” Greg said, “but we have to go back in and have dessert right now, no matter how much I don’t want it.” He pulled himself out of Nick’s arms and stood up, then held out a hand to Nick with a smile. Nick took it with his right hand, and Greg pulled him up into a kiss.
“Let’s go have this horrible dessert,” Nick said.
“If it’s anything like what you and Tina keep saying Leah’s cooking’s supposed to be like, it really will be horrible,” Greg said.
There were bowls of ice cream at their places when they returned to the dining room together. “Decided to spare us from your cookies and brownies, Leah?” Nick asked. She gave him a fake scowl, so he laughed and said, “You know I’m kidding. That dinner tasted great.”
“It ought to have,” Leah said. “It took so much out of me I had to serve store-bought ice cream for dessert.”
Nick sat down in his seat again and started to eat. Silence wrapped around the table again, but it was only a few moments before his mother set her spoon down with an audible clink, wiped her mouth with her napkin, and threw the cloth on the table. She pushed her chair back and left the room. Nick’s father waited a few seconds, looking around the table, before following her.
Nick took a look around the table as well. “What happened here?”
“Tina told her to quit being a meddling bitch,” Leah said with a look of frustration on her face. Next to her, Nathan looked like he was barely restraining a smile and a laugh.
“She’s had it coming for years,” Tina said. She looked a lot like her mother with her own self-satisfied expression. Greg had the same expression as Nathan; Nick caught his eyes and it disappeared.
“This family is a mess,” Nick said, pushing his spoon into his ice cream.
***
Nick had asked Greg to wake him up when Warrick and Catherine arrived after work, so he was surprised when Greg wasn’t even in the room when his eyes opened.
“You just keep letting him put himself before his family!” a female voice echoed from down the hallway.
His mother was shouting. It figured that she’d spent nearly a full day as a decent, loving, concerned parent, and he’d been in a box for the whole thing. Nick groaned at the thought that he’d woken up because of her shouting.
“Tell him to put his little game behind him and move on with his life!”
Nick put his pillow over his head. That was how she’d always looked at it, just a game he was playing to get at her before he got on with his real life. Just like when he’d left A&M for Rice, when he’d become a cop instead of going to law school (or going back to A&M), when he’d transferred into Dallas CSI instead of staying with the police (or going to law school), and when he’d moved to Las Vegas instead of staying in Dallas (or rejoining the police). Being gay was just the latest in his string of mistakes, a new game of being gay instead of being normal (or moving back to Dallas). At this point, Nick was playing so many games that he’d lost track of them all. He’d probably broken the rules to all of them, too.
“Well, he’s certainly not listening to me anymore!”
Unfortunately, Nick thought, that was all too wrong and in two completely different ways. In one way, he’d give anything not to have to listen to her anymore right now so that he could get back to sleep. In the other, he’d spent years not listening to her, so the “anymore” she’d tacked on to the end wasn’t entirely accurate.
Giving up on sleep for the moment, Nick got out of bed and pulled on a shirt. He ambled past the spare bedroom door, which was doing a completely inadequate job of holding in his mother’s complaints, to the living room. Greg, Nick’s sisters, and Nick’s brother-in-law were all watching one of the late night television programs. Nick never bothered trying to tell them apart because he never saw them anyway.
“We were keeping the volume low for you,” Greg said. “But if you’re awake anyway…” He held up the remote control and the sound level from the television went up until Nick’s mother was no longer audible. Nick sat down on the couch next to Greg and lost himself in the mindless program.
The peace was shattered during a commercial break when all five of them jumped at the sound of a door slamming. Nick’s mother stormed past them, headed for the front door and carrying a suitcase, shouting over her shoulder at her husband, saying, “It’s Las Vegas, Bill, I think I’ll be able to find a damn hotel.”
“You wanted her to leave,” Greg said quietly to Nick.
“Not like this,” Nick said. He, Leah, and Tina all got up to follow their mother. She was almost to the front door when the doorbell rang. They saw her stop and look down at the suitcase in her hand. She opened the nearby coat closet, shoved it inside, and shut the door. Then she visibly composed herself and opened the front door.
“Ms. Willows, Mr. Brown, it’s good to see you both again,” she said. She opened the door wider, revealing Catherine and Warrick on the other side. “Please, please come in,” she went on, motioning them inside.
Nick felt a hand on his shoulder. “Guess she’s not leaving yet,” Greg said in his ear.
“No,” Nick said with a slight shake of his head, his mouth still round from the word as he looked around bewilderedly and took a deep breath.
Series: Lone Star, Chapter 2
Author: acroarcs
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: Let's go with 13
Disclaimer: Don't own CSI or the characters.
Setting: Post-GD
Summary: Nick's dad makes him angry, Nick's sister makes him dinner, and Nick's mom makes everyone miserable.
Notes: I decided I liked having the drabblish opening for the first chapter, so I'm keeping that format. It's the cheater's way of getting out of writing a real opening.
1: Lines in the Sand
Wayward Child
One thing Nick had tried to explain to Greg several times is how for a Texan, every piece of Texas is home. How the state feels like it has a life of its own, how it feels like a living, breathing entity that fills every acre of desert, grassland, or forest from the Rio Grande to the Red River, from the Panhandle to the Gulf Coast.
Greg just thought it was crazy. When Nick had let out a breath of relief as their plane touched down at El Paso International two Christmases before, saying how good it was to be home again, Greg had pointed out that Nick had never lived in El Paso. When Nick had attempted his explanation, Greg had made some comparison with Los Angeles and San Francisco, saying that one felt like home and the other didn’t.
Short of having Greg move to Texas, something he didn’t think he’d ever try anyway, Nick didn’t think he’d ever find a way to get the point through to him. So Greg had just shaken his head when they’d gone to San Antonio to see Beth, just like he’d do if they ever went to Austin, not understanding that it didn’t matter where in Texas the city was, just that the city was in Texas. Not understanding that he got the same joy and the same pain of going home each time, each place.
Not understanding that the living, breathing entity could also reach across New Mexico and Arizona to find its wayward child in Las Vegas.
***
“Can’t that wait until after dinner, Dad?” Tina asked. Nick saw her eyes move toward him, widening slightly. For over thirty years, that signal had been her way to warn Nick of unexpected trouble, telling him to duck and hide while he had the chance.
Despite her warning, Nick saw no way out of this, even though he had no idea what this was. His father ignored Tina’s question and motioned for Nick to follow him the spare bedroom. Nick trailed behind him, feeling everyone’s eyes on him as he went.
The bedroom felt smaller than usual. Normally he and Greg only used the room as a makeshift office. A computer sat on a small desk next to a set of bookshelves which held months and years worth of forensic and other scientific journals. They’d really only put a bed in here because they had an extra from the time before they’d moved in together, but his parents were definitely using it now. Instead of the nearly-straightened state Greg left it in after sitting and reading books and magazines on it, it was immaculately made without a crease or wrinkle to be seen.
Nick closed the door and sat down on the bed.
His father took the chair at the computer desk, moving it out and sitting on it backwards, legs tucked underneath the adjustable back and arms folded on the top. “I know this isn’t an easy time for you,” he said. He stopped, casting his eyes down to the floor.
“No,” Nick said. He looked his father in the eyes in spite of the lack of eye contact from the other side. “But you didn’t get me in here to talk about that, did you?”
“No, no, I didn’t,” his father said. He fell silent again.
“Well,” Nick said. He set his left arm on the footboard of the bed, making a solid knocking sound when the cast met the wood. “The only thing that’s happened since we left the hospital is a reporter from Austin coming by. And whatever you’re about to say, Mom’s really happy about, so you might as well just get it out as quickly as possible.”
“Your mother’s happy about what she thinks I’m going to say,” Nick’s father said. “But she’s convinced herself I’m going to tell you Greg needs to move out.”
“Why would she think that?”
“The reporter’s probably Steve Kemper,” Nick’s father said. He sat up, no longer leaning on the back of the chair. “He covers the court. And if he finds out about you and Greg, he’ll also find a lot of interested ears back in Austin.”
Nick crossed his arms. “What does it matter to people in Austin what someone in Las Vegas does?”
“It doesn’t,” his father said. “But it matters what the son of a judge who’s up for reelection this year does.”
“This is stupid,” Nick said. He stood up and walked across the room. “Even if they did care, you know as well as I do that the elections barely matter and no one pays them any attention. You might even run unopposed.”
“They matter if the party finds someone to replace me on the ballot.”
“You think they’d do that.”
“They might.” Nick’s father turned the chair to face him. “They’ll decide I have a personal bias they don’t want to see on the court.”
Nick felt his eyes narrow in anger. “I’m not changing anything Greg and I are doing so you can feel more comfortable about your politics,” he said.
“I’m not asking you…” his father started, but Nick cut him off.
“And,” he said sharply, “the idea that you’d even think about compromising your judgment so that you can stay on a court makes me sick.”
“I’m just asking you to keep being careful, Pancho.”
Nick walked over to the door. “You ask me for that reason, you can call me Nick.” His hand went to the doorknob. “Don’t talk to Greg about this. I’d like it if he had a chance of liking my family.” He opened the door and walked out into the hallway. He could hear his mother talking in the living room, so he went the other direction, going into his and Greg’s bedroom.
He shut the door and sat on this bed as well. His breathing had gone erratic again, like in the elevator in the hospital, and he concentrated on calming himself down. One breath in, one breath out. One breath in. Hold. Hold. Hold. One breath out. There was a light knock on the door before it opened.
“I saw your dad,” Greg said. “Didn’t see you.”
“Came in here,” Nick said. He checked his breathing. It felt normal again.
“Tina said that whatever your dad was saying wouldn’t be good,” Greg went on. Nick shook with a sharp, laughing grunt. “What?”
“I told him not to say anything to you,” Nick said. “Didn’t figure on Tina. I should’ve.”
“She also said your mom wants me gone.” Greg sat down on the bed next to Nick. “I guess that’s not a big surprise, though.” He stopped for a moment. “Shit, Nick, this is probably exactly what you don’t need right now.”
“It could be better,” Nick admitted. He turned to look Greg in the face. “You know, he’s never said anything about it before.”
“What do you mean?”
“My dad,” Nick said. “When I told him I was gay, he just stopped and looked at me for a second, then asked if I’d seen the Cowboys game the week before. I knew I had to tell him and then he just changed the subject immediately. And then I’d been so scared of what could have happened that I took it to mean he didn’t care, didn’t think it was important.”
“And now?”
“Now I just don’t know,” Nick said. “He’s concerned about this reporter because of his election, of all things. So now I know what he thinks publicly, at least.”
“He’s here, isn’t he?” Greg asked. He reached up to Nick’s forehead and wiped off sweat Nick hadn’t known was there.
“So’s my mother,” Nick said. “And I think we know how she feels.”
“We need more evidence, then,” Greg said. Nick cocked his head to the side at him. “What?” Greg asked. “It’s true, even if it sounds like work. Come on, Leah’s almost finished with dinner.”
They walked together down the hallway and into the living room, where Nathan had a baseball game on the television. Nick’s mother was pretending to watch the game, but Nick could see that she was actually watching him walk through the room in spite of which direction her face was pointing. Her eyes looked focused on where Greg’s hand rested on his back, and her self-satisfied smile crumbled just a small amount. Nick’s father was watching them as well, his face mixing both disappointment and apology. Nick and Greg continued into the dining room.
There were seven chairs arranged around the table, one at each end, two on one side, and three on the other. Tina was already seated at the center of the table, while a glass of ice and a can of Diet Coke indicated that Leah had claimed a chair on the other side. “Nicky,” she said, “why don’t you take the head of the table next to Leah? It is your house, after all, and she wants to see your face while you eat her cooking.”
Nick laughed. “If it’s anything like it was when I was little, she won’t be too happy about that,” he said. In his head, though, he was laughing at how his sisters were choreographing the seating. Greg would sit between him and Tina and Nathan would naturally sit next to Leah, so the only two seats left would be his parents’. There was no way his mother would take the end of the table while his father was there, so she’d be on the other side of Tina from Greg and they wouldn’t even be able to see each other while they ate. In the meantime, he’d be next to Greg and as far away from his parents as possible. He wondered if they’d planned it together or if they’d just set it up without talking about it. Neither would surprise him.
Greg slipped into the chair on his right and set a hand on his knee while Leah emerged from the kitchen to call the others to the table. Nick grinned as they sat exactly as he’d predicted. He grinned even more when Leah brought a platter of pork chops to the table.
“I’d’ve made ribs, but I didn’t know if you’d want sauce dripping down into your cast,” she said as she held it in front of Nick so he could serve himself. She passed the tray to Greg.
“No complaints here,” Nick said. “Thanks.”
She disappeared into the kitchen again, this time returning with potato salad. The third time she brought cornbread. In the meantime, Tina was steering the conversation at the table, making small talk about the visit Chris, Linda’s oldest son, had made to Dallas the month before, about how wonderful Leah’s cooking was (with a snide remark that it hadn’t been as good thirty years before), about things she ought to do while she was in Las Vegas now that Nick was out of the hospital.
Leah reciprocated with gratitude at the compliment (with a snide remark that Tina’s cooking hadn’t improved at all in thirty years) and with speculation that she, Tina, and Linda ought to have a girls’ night in Vegas while they were all there anyway. Nick could barely hear his father and Nathan talking about the Rangers at the other end of the table. Leah was about to launch into a story about something that had happened at work when Nick’s mother loudly asked, “So, where will Greg be staying?”
Nick watched as his knife slowed to a stop in the middle of his pork chop before he forced himself to keep cutting. The other conversations had stopped. “Here,” he said, not bothering to look up. “Why would he leave?” He put a piece of pork chop in his mouth.
“I thought that…” his mother said.
“Mom,” Tina said softly. She gently set a hand on the table in front of her mother.
Mrs. Stokes went on anyway. “I thought that you and your father had agreed Greg should leave.”
“No,” Nick said, cutting another piece of pork. “I think that was just you. Unless Greg wants to leave.”
“No,” Greg said flatly. Nick glanced up from his plate. Greg’s face was blank and emotionless.
“See?” Nick said. “I think that settles it.” He went back to his dinner, sparing some time for a look around the table as he put the next piece of meat in his mouth.
No one was moving.
“Why don’t I get dessert?” Leah asked, breaking the silence.
Nick’s mother started to talk again, but Tina put her hand down more emphatically and Leah stood and stared her down. She turned to look at Nick’s father, but his eyes were on his plate.
“I’ll help you,” Greg said quickly. He stood, stalking off into the kitchen. Leah motioned for Nick to stay put and followed him.
“Thanks, Mom,” Nick said.
“Sweetie, if you’d just realize that your choices have consequences for other people, things would go a lot better.” She turned in her chair, taking a forkful of potato salad as if that were the end of the discussion.
Nick felt like growling under his breath, but he held it in. If his mother was willing to let it go at that, he was willing to let her stop there instead of waiting to hear what else she might say. He settled for another piece of cornbread, but he’d only taken one bite of it before he got up and went to look for Greg.
Neither Leah nor Greg was in the kitchen, but he could see Leah out on the back porch through a window. He went to the door and quietly opened it, seeing Greg as well. Both of them looked over as he walked outside, Greg from the bench along the wall, Leah from where she stood.
“So none of us turned out the way she wanted,” Leah said, turning back to Greg, “and it’s just Nick’s bad luck that he’s the youngest.”
“Hey, it had to be someone,” Nick said. He sat down on the bench next to Greg, carefully putting his left arm around Greg’s shoulders. Greg leaned into his chest. Leah went back inside.
“It doesn’t matter if she’s got a reason,” Greg said. “It still pisses me off.”
“I know,” Nick said quietly. He kissed the top of Greg’s head. “I’m going to try and get them to leave. I’m supposed to be recovering, right?”
Greg laughed.
“I’ve missed that,” Nick said. “That right there.”
“There hasn’t been a lot to laugh or smile about lately,” Greg sighed. He sat up and turned to look at Nick. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too,” Nick said. He pulled Greg back in to hold on to him tightly. “And I’m not letting anyone take you away from me.”
“That’s all well and good,” Greg said, “but we have to go back in and have dessert right now, no matter how much I don’t want it.” He pulled himself out of Nick’s arms and stood up, then held out a hand to Nick with a smile. Nick took it with his right hand, and Greg pulled him up into a kiss.
“Let’s go have this horrible dessert,” Nick said.
“If it’s anything like what you and Tina keep saying Leah’s cooking’s supposed to be like, it really will be horrible,” Greg said.
There were bowls of ice cream at their places when they returned to the dining room together. “Decided to spare us from your cookies and brownies, Leah?” Nick asked. She gave him a fake scowl, so he laughed and said, “You know I’m kidding. That dinner tasted great.”
“It ought to have,” Leah said. “It took so much out of me I had to serve store-bought ice cream for dessert.”
Nick sat down in his seat again and started to eat. Silence wrapped around the table again, but it was only a few moments before his mother set her spoon down with an audible clink, wiped her mouth with her napkin, and threw the cloth on the table. She pushed her chair back and left the room. Nick’s father waited a few seconds, looking around the table, before following her.
Nick took a look around the table as well. “What happened here?”
“Tina told her to quit being a meddling bitch,” Leah said with a look of frustration on her face. Next to her, Nathan looked like he was barely restraining a smile and a laugh.
“She’s had it coming for years,” Tina said. She looked a lot like her mother with her own self-satisfied expression. Greg had the same expression as Nathan; Nick caught his eyes and it disappeared.
“This family is a mess,” Nick said, pushing his spoon into his ice cream.
***
Nick had asked Greg to wake him up when Warrick and Catherine arrived after work, so he was surprised when Greg wasn’t even in the room when his eyes opened.
“You just keep letting him put himself before his family!” a female voice echoed from down the hallway.
His mother was shouting. It figured that she’d spent nearly a full day as a decent, loving, concerned parent, and he’d been in a box for the whole thing. Nick groaned at the thought that he’d woken up because of her shouting.
“Tell him to put his little game behind him and move on with his life!”
Nick put his pillow over his head. That was how she’d always looked at it, just a game he was playing to get at her before he got on with his real life. Just like when he’d left A&M for Rice, when he’d become a cop instead of going to law school (or going back to A&M), when he’d transferred into Dallas CSI instead of staying with the police (or going to law school), and when he’d moved to Las Vegas instead of staying in Dallas (or rejoining the police). Being gay was just the latest in his string of mistakes, a new game of being gay instead of being normal (or moving back to Dallas). At this point, Nick was playing so many games that he’d lost track of them all. He’d probably broken the rules to all of them, too.
“Well, he’s certainly not listening to me anymore!”
Unfortunately, Nick thought, that was all too wrong and in two completely different ways. In one way, he’d give anything not to have to listen to her anymore right now so that he could get back to sleep. In the other, he’d spent years not listening to her, so the “anymore” she’d tacked on to the end wasn’t entirely accurate.
Giving up on sleep for the moment, Nick got out of bed and pulled on a shirt. He ambled past the spare bedroom door, which was doing a completely inadequate job of holding in his mother’s complaints, to the living room. Greg, Nick’s sisters, and Nick’s brother-in-law were all watching one of the late night television programs. Nick never bothered trying to tell them apart because he never saw them anyway.
“We were keeping the volume low for you,” Greg said. “But if you’re awake anyway…” He held up the remote control and the sound level from the television went up until Nick’s mother was no longer audible. Nick sat down on the couch next to Greg and lost himself in the mindless program.
The peace was shattered during a commercial break when all five of them jumped at the sound of a door slamming. Nick’s mother stormed past them, headed for the front door and carrying a suitcase, shouting over her shoulder at her husband, saying, “It’s Las Vegas, Bill, I think I’ll be able to find a damn hotel.”
“You wanted her to leave,” Greg said quietly to Nick.
“Not like this,” Nick said. He, Leah, and Tina all got up to follow their mother. She was almost to the front door when the doorbell rang. They saw her stop and look down at the suitcase in her hand. She opened the nearby coat closet, shoved it inside, and shut the door. Then she visibly composed herself and opened the front door.
“Ms. Willows, Mr. Brown, it’s good to see you both again,” she said. She opened the door wider, revealing Catherine and Warrick on the other side. “Please, please come in,” she went on, motioning them inside.
Nick felt a hand on his shoulder. “Guess she’s not leaving yet,” Greg said in his ear.
“No,” Nick said with a slight shake of his head, his mouth still round from the word as he looked around bewilderedly and took a deep breath.
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 02:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 06:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 11:26 am (UTC)*eagerly looking forward to the next chapter*
no subject
Date: 2005-06-15 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-15 02:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-15 02:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-19 04:54 am (UTC)I just think this is completely marvelous so far.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-21 05:58 am (UTC)The opening drabble-thing was probably my favorite part. I'm from Austin and such a Texas girl, so it really rang true.
My only quibble would have to be the pork chops. I can't imagine trying to cut pork chops with a cast, even on my left arm. However, with so much character goodness to distract me, I can't say I minded very much at all.
I'm really looking forward to the next part!
no subject
Date: 2005-06-21 02:33 pm (UTC)Long story short, if the cast ought to be causing a problem and it isn't, I want to know. I think this instance is easy enough to change if it needs to be, but I don't want to do it if it isn't necessary.
And on the drabble, I'm a Texas ex-pat myself. First eighteen years of my life were there, and my family's still all there. So if you change some of the city names around (since I did live in Austin and El Paso) and change Las Vegas to DC, it was pretty straightforward for me to write.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-21 02:39 pm (UTC)I like his sisters, too, at least the ones we have so far, but these are the ones that came to Las Vegas the soonest and that you're supposed to like. Where are the others?
no subject
Date: 2005-07-15 02:04 am (UTC)It's absolutly wonderful
Nick put his pillow over his head. That was how she’d always looked at it, just a game he was playing to get at her before he got on with his real life. Just like when he’d left A&M for Rice, when he’d become a cop instead of going to law school (or going back to A&M), when he’d transferred into Dallas CSI instead of staying with the police (or going to law school), and when he’d moved to Las Vegas instead of staying in Dallas (or rejoining the police). Being gay was just the latest in his string of mistakes, a new game of being gay instead of being normal (or moving back to Dallas). At this point, Nick was playing so many games that he’d lost track of them all. He’d probably broken the rules to all of them, too.
This whole narrative reminds me so much of my relationship with my own mother-- it's scary.
Major kudos to you for being able to grasp that weird mix of dissapointment and expectation.
And that last bit, with his mother tucking the suitcase into the closet because of company-- very like my mother too!
Really! It's scary how real you portrayed mothers in general.
Yeesh-- I echo
Do you come from a big family?
I definetly get the home vibe in this-- I can tell that you love Texas-- but it's a mixed sort of love. In that, you love it, but you don't belong there anymore.
Can't wait for the next chapter luv :-)
XOX
no subject
Date: 2005-07-15 06:00 am (UTC)My own nuclear family is small - two parents and a younger brother, but there's a lot of interaction with some of the extended family as well. My mom's side in particular is mostly in the same city and retains some of the Hispanic concentration on familial relations despite getting watered down with Americanism for the last century and change, but it's got nothing on growing up with six older siblings.
And as for Texas, it's a bittersweet love, like you note. I realized at the beginning of 2003 that I wouldn't move back there after college, that no matter how large the state was, it was too small a box for me to fit in, and it hit me very hard. It wasn't pretty and consisted of me shouting and yelling in the small, enclosed confines of a Toyota Corolla in the Albertson's parking lot at Mesa and Resler in El Paso in front of my mother. She'd figured out something was wrong, but she hadn't bargained on that reaction. Two days later, I was on a plane to Boston, two weeks before the original plan.
Now she thinks there were other things going on at the time, and there were, but that was the main thing then.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-16 02:33 am (UTC)Really, everything about San Francisco agrees with me; I love the people, the ideology, the sense of community-- but like you said, too much went on that I can't easily forget.
As for family-- glad you never had to go through the arguments over orientation, it's a heart breaker-- going through something like that.
Unlike with Nick's mom and with you and your parents-- I've never told my parents that I might be Bi. They're very conservative, and I really don't know if the already shaky relationship between my mom and I could stand a blow like that.
How far back does the Spanish in your family go? And is the Hispanic in your family spanish, or something else? I'm a first generation American (and with a VERY mixed and varied background), so I'm always rather curious about where people's families comes from.
XOX
no subject
Date: 2005-07-18 05:10 am (UTC)My dad's side, on the other hand, is predominantly German, but there's probably some amount of Polish thrown in as well, given the area back in Europe that they came from was where Prussians and Poles mixed (not very successfully) and they settled predominantly in Wisconsin. My dad's father was from New York, though.
In short, I come through as very American, to the point where I can't actually fill out any of the forms about race very well. When I applied to college, for example, I just marked a bunch of boxes that described me (even if they said to pick just one) and let the admissions boards pick for themselves. (They invariably picked White/Hispanic/Mexican.) It also makes me uncomfortable in identifying with any one ethnic group, though it's very easy for me to take part in anything that mixes Hispanic and non-Hispanic culture - that is, after all, what Texan culture is all about.
Well, that and being unbelievably biased in favor of one's state.