Fic: Giving Up

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

Title: Giving Up
Rating: G. LoL.
Summary: Greg gives up. Written too late for the "Smoke" challenge at ngchallenge, but I just had the plot bunny today, thanks to a poster from Truth that told me what Nick tells Greg near the end. Given to flipflopadd1ct and as pressie because he's a genius and I'm ... not. Unbeta'd, so blame me for all mistakes.



“I tried,” Greg whined, looking down at the ground with a guilty expression on his face. “I know you hate it and I know you won’t kiss me until I brush my teeth eighteen times, but it’s hard, Nick.”

Nick sighed and reached behind him, pulling a thick stack of computer paper off the table. “This is what you’re doing to yourself,” he said, waving a picture in front of Greg’s face. “Look. Just look.”

“I know,” Greg exclaimed. “I know, and I can’t stop!”

Nick, ever the determined one, kept handing Greg pictures until Greg let out a snort of helpless laughter. “Nick, don’t think I haven’t tried,” he said,. “I went four days last week.”

“Okay, if that’s not working,” Nick said, abandoning the pictures and leaning back in his chair, “do you know how much money you could save-”

“Four hundred twenty one dollars and forty-four cents a year,” Greg interrupted.

“I didn’t want it to come to this,” Nick said after am moment of silence. “George Bush doesn’t support gay marriages.”

“Well, I know that,” Greg said. “Smoking hasn’t made me stupid, you know.”

Nick gave him a look that clearly said he disagreed, but pushed ahead. “The tobacco industry contributed a large amount to his re-election campaign.”

Greg narrowed his eyes. “How large?”

“Substantially large.”

He looked down at the pack of cigarettes in his hand and sighed. “Damn it.” He made to throw them away, then stopped. “Hey Brass, want some cigarettes?”

“Not if Nicky was telling the truth,” Brass said, raising his eyebrows at Greg before disappearing out the door.

“Yeah. Too bad Nick always tells the truth,” he muttered, looking at the pack longingly before throwing them into the garbage can. “You always know just what to say,” he said to Nick. “I don’t have any vices left, thanks to you!”

Comments

[starry-midnight.livejournal.com]

That was too cute! I loved it! :)

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

Heehee, thanks!

[subluxate]

Hee. I like that. Best argument against smoking I've heard lately.

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

*squees over your icon* I love him!

Thanks :)

[subluxate]

Chris Meloni is love, really. I adore him. (My new layout will soon have a header of him kissing Lee Tergesen.)

Anytime =) I love your writing.

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

I can't seem to get the headers to ever work. But that's okay, seeing as I don't have one. Let me know when it's up - I want to see it :)

You write L&O fics, right? Any about him?

And awww, you flatter me. I write okay - I'm blessed with good ideas. Lol.

[subluxate]

I will let you know. (amazonqueenkate is making it for me. She's so good to me.)

I do write L&O, and I really like writing Elliot. I'm working on a longish one at the moment. (I write a strange pairing for him, though--it's a crossover. Do you remember Mike Logan from the original series? I think they would work well together.)

You also make me laugh, which is great.

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

I didn't ever watch the original L&O. I got into CI, and then caught an ep of SVU ... I rarely watch it, though, so I'm planning to buy the DVD's.

I'm friending you. Because, well, I like you.

[subluxate]

SVU is, in my opinion, the best of the franchise. There's actual character development, which is awesome.

*friends you back*

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

The character development is great, but I'm so attached to Goren from CI. His character is just amazing, and I always feel sorry for him. I mean, he's brilliant, but he really hasn't got much of a life.

Elliot, though ... *sigh* I loff him.

[subluxate]

I haven't seen enough of CI to judge Goren, really, though he is interesting.

I do love Elliot. I have a bit of a Meloni fixation, really.

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

Have you seen any of his movies? I saw - damn, what's it called - "Opposties Attract" (er, I think) a few months ago. It was okay, but he rocks.

[subluxate]

I saw a really bad SciFi channel one two nights ago--"Target Earth". He did the best he could with the script, but it was poorly written. Is the one you're talking about "The Souler Opposite"? I've been meaning to see it.

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

Souler Opposites - that's the one. All I remember is that it had opposite in the title. LoL. It was okay - I don't remember much about it other than that I thought they should have chosen someone else opposite him.

Damn it, now I need to go rent all the movies of his I can find. I'm such a fangirl at times ...

[subluxate]

Haha, they're all on my Netflix queue =P

[squara.livejournal.com]

dang it, I really really need to stop smoking now.

[tyler-logan.livejournal.com]

Yep! Me too...even if I am Canadian....I'm sure that somehow the $ all ends up going to the same place!


sigh

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

Yes, because we can't support this sort of thing.

[boy-ish.livejournal.com]

Yay for a nice little smoking-is-bad one! This challenge had made me so depressed with all the positivity toward it. Still, I don't even like the concept of simply *supposing* that either of their characters could be smokers (my own personal qualms with feeling sort of attached to them--not judgment on anybody else). But quitting is good (especially aided by the Bush reference and Nick's disapproval of the habit). So, I liked it. Nice. Thank you.

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

Yes, I prefer them as non-smokers - I hadn't even considered the fact one of them could smoke until the challenge came up. I mean, we never see it, but of course that doesn't say much.

I'm glad you liked it. I will have to let the guy who gave me the poster know I passed the information on :)

[fred-bear.livejournal.com]

Hee! Loff it! ;)

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

Loff you!

[amazonqueenkate.livejournal.com]

Aww. Too cute. Rock on. :) ("Smoking hasn't made me stupid." Priceless.)

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

Heehee, that line came out of nowhere, and I immediately saw the look on Nick's face.

Glad you liked it :)

[amyvand25.livejournal.com]

Cute! Liked it muchly! :D

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

*grin*

Thanks!

[catlover2x.livejournal.com]

Oh I LOVED that last reason to stop smoking. If I smoked, I'd stop on a dime. And I so love when Brass's knee-jerk left wing side comes out to play. And also what an incredible thing to say about Nick that he always tells the truth. That's a compliment worth earning. :-)

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

You, my dear, are extremely good for my ego.

[catlover2x.livejournal.com]

You know, I have this theory that we have to show up in our writing. You can't hide yourself, it comes out without our volition, and so a lot of the stories, no matter how fluffy, are really profound. And this was really profound. So I am only reflecting back to you the lovely worth of yourself and your writing. But I'm glad to be good for your ego. :-D

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

Awwww .... thanks :)

[flipflopadd1ct.livejournal.com]

Given to flipflopadd1ct and as pressie because he's a genius and I'm ... not. - You already know what I think about this fic (loved it) but you are not a non-genius!! Don't put yourself down like that because it's just not true! This fic alone is worthy of a genius. I'm gonna have to give you a hug now. *does so*

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

*hugs back*

I'm only a non-genius because I don't ever think of the obvious. I look for the zebra :)

*kisses*

[maribouquet.livejournal.com]

I love this - such a gem. Especially that last line...poor Greg, his only vice left is Nick. :)

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

Heehee, glad you liked it :)

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with thetrainsinkaos and was also dissapointed about some of the reactions to the challenge. Of course I couldn't be creative and write such a lovely dialogue between Nick & Greg, but had to be bitchy in my journal about the Smoke-issue... sigh.
So thank you for writing this. It certainly is a much nicer way of getting a point across;)(And I can 'totally' imagine Nick's face after the 'Smoking hasn't made me stupid' remark: those eyebrows must have been working overtime;) Again: thanks.

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you liked it. I, too, was a little disappointed by all the "smoking is cool" fics.

[ladypanther03.livejournal.com]

well, if that isn't motivation to give up smoking, what is? Love it.

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

Dude, right? If I smoked, I would have totally given it up.

Thank you.