Little stand-alone ficlets...
Feb. 18th, 2006 05:19 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
scoobygang63.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
nickngregHello there! Slasher reporting for duty...
These are two stand-alone extracts from an enormous CSI fic writing project that I started, most likely because there's almost no chance I'll ever actually finish it. You see, I chicken out of sharing fic quite a lot. However it is now late, and I have been up for a long time, so I am going to stop lurking on this community for the first time ever and be brave and post.
Err, I hope you enjoy!
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Summary: This first little fic is a 1000 word Christmas story I wrote in time for the holidays but never actually posted. Set in season three, Nick always goes home for the holidays whilst Greg has... his cat.
Rating: PG
Greg was sitting alone in his apartment, surrounded by clutter that was slightly more seasonal than usual The litter on the floor included empty boxes of dates and cat toys shaped like snowmen. He had strung multi-coloured lights around the room and flung tinsel haphazardly over the backs of chairs, but no matter how much decorating he had done, or how many mince pies he had eaten, there was no escaping that he was feeling rather lonely. It was ridiculous, he thought; he was a grown man, and he didn’t buy into the magic of Christmas crap anymore. It was just another day, albeit one where he had a microwaveable turkey dinner to look forward to. Settling on his sofa with Friederich Miescher purring on his chest, watching yet another rerun of “It’s a Wonderful Life” he debated opening the present his father had sent him; the annual bottle of whisky that he received in the mail with a card that read “with love from Dad and family”, an unintentional kick in the teeth from a man who tried his hardest to keep in touch with a son who was nothing more than a perpetual reminder of a life long left behind. Still, it wasn’t his fault he had remarried. Greg wasn’t going to complain. Okay, so they hadn’t really spoken since he’d gone to college, but he’d raised his son well. Then he’d carried on with life, and Greg was happy for him. He couldn’t begrudge him that. It was no one’s fault but his own that he was moping about in his boxers and an old t-shirt in front of the TV on Christmas Day with a cat named after a dead German scientist. It was strange, but something about Christmas was always so depressing.
Someone knocked at the door, making Greg flinch and Freddy jump to the floor with a yowl of protest. Completely puzzled, Greg prised himself off of the sofa and headed for the door, making some half-hearted attempts to flatten his hair and rubbing his unshaven chin with some embarrassment. He leaned in to peer through the peep hole and a wide grin spread against the wood of the door, which he lazily threw back and beamed at his visitor.
“Nick?”
The other man smiled his consuming smile and hefted the bulging box he clasped against his broad chest. “Merry Christmas Greg-o! Mind if I come in? This stuff is kind of weighty.”
“Of course, man, come in.” Greg stood aside and let Nick march into the apartment, moving straight past the living room and through into the kitchen, where he deposited his box on Greg’s criminally underused dining table and started to empty it of its contents. Greg stood in the doorway watching in confusion as Nick unpacked various sized packages and laid them out orderly on the counter. “Err, Nick? What are you doing here?”
“I’m cooking you Christmas dinner.”
“What?”
Nick paused and looked at Greg, eyebrows raised. “I expect you had some abomination lined up. What was it, Chinese take-out? Pot noodle? One of your infamous burger sauce sandwiches?”
Greg mustered up the dignity to look haughty, not something easily done sporting nothing but underwear with cartoon characters on. “No, actually. It’s a microwave turkey dinner. They’re really good now you know-”
“No, Greg, they’re not.” Nick interrupted. “It doesn’t matter though, because I’m here now, and I am going to cook you a dinner my mother would be proud to call her own.”
“Speaking of mothers, what are you doing here? I thought you were spending the holidays with your parents, on the ranch? The big family Christmas, with all the kids and the pie and the roaring fires? Drinking brandy in the evenings with your dad and smoking a pipe?”
“I don’t smoke a pipe Greg.”
He shrugged. “I know, I just think it completes the image.”
“Uncle Albert smokes a pipe.”
“You have an Uncle Albert?”
“What was your point, Greg?”
“I just meant that you love all that stuff. You were so excited about going home for Christmas; you’ve been talking about it for weeks. So why are you here, now, at two in the afternoon on Christmas Day? You should be with your family.”
Nick put down a stick of butter and turned to face Greg properly. “What do you want me to say?”
“Well, start with ‘I arrived yesterday morning and spent the day drinking brandy and smoking a pipe with my dad-’”
“I don’t smoke a pipe.” Nick interrupted, laughing.
“Right. Uncle Albert was doing the smoking. Then what?”
“Then I mentioned to my mom that I hated her stuffing and she sent me packing straight back to Vegas.”
“Ha ha. Am I going to get a straight answer?”
“Truthfully?” Nick moved across the kitchen to where Greg stood against the door frame and slid an arm around his waist, rubbing his thumb against the small of Greg’s back and looking into his eyes. “I couldn’t bear the thought of you being all on your own. Christmas is about being with the people you love, and I love you, Greg.”
Greg smiled helplessly and leaned in for a kiss. “I love you too, Nicky, and I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” Nick whispered, “’Cause the state I found you in? Approaching Sara levels of crazy-cat-lady.”
“Hey! Are you calling my cat crazy?” Greg laughed, pushing Nick away in mock offence.
“No,” Nick said, pulling him back, “I’m calling you crazy. Those decorations man! It looks like a one eyed midget hung that tinsel.”
Greg leant in for another kiss, shrugging, “I forgot to buy tacks. I must be crazy, though, because there’s a handsome man in my kitchen offering to cook me dinner and I’m not thinking about food.”
“Mmm…” Nick leaned in and kissed Greg again, before pushing him away and heading back to his turkey, laughing over his shoulder. “Well after the drive back that I just had, I’m afraid I definitely am. Go wait in the living room whilst I get this bird in the oven. Go on, get!”
As Greg threw himself back down on the sofa, listening to Nick’s enthusiastic singing in the other room, he turned back to “It’s a Wonderful Life” with a completely different feeling towards the holiday. It was strange, but something about Christmas was always so magical.
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Summary: This second little bit is shorter (600) set post Playing With Fire season three/four. Greg observes Nick and Sara's relationship and thinks about love.
Rating: PG
“All love stories are tragic.” Sara lifted her chin towards Nick, defiantly, stretching the first syllable of “tragic” out in her characteristic drawl, putting an inordinate emphasis on the word and, so it seemed to Greg, almost entirely removing it of its meaning. It sounded lazy, commonplace. It ought to sound quick and painful like the slice of a knife in your gut.
“What? No. No way, that’s ridiculous.” Nick scoffed at her, raising his beer bottle to his lips but not drinking, resting it there against his warm flesh, luxuriating in the feel of the cold glass as his eyes flashed at Sara, anticipating her argument.
There was going to be an argument, Greg knew, and it would complete what was now a familiar scene. The three of them; Sara, Nick and himself, were sat in Nick’s apartment, where they’d come to watch the game. If you asked Greg what game he wouldn’t have been able to tell you. He wasn’t much of a sports fan, but it was something that Nick and Sara shared, and he was too jealous to let that be. He could admit it to himself. He was jealous of their relationship, how close they were, almost like brother and sister at times, with their heated debates and vicious rivalries. Besides, it was these long nights that followed the game that were the main event. As the alcohol flowed so their tongues loosened until finally there came an argument. Sara and Nick never failed to argue, it was inevitable. Their personalities were so different, for Nick was an eternal optimist who could see the bright side in almost all situations while Sara was pretty pessimistic, neurotic and a desperate workaholic. Sara would obsess and brood over any failure, where Nick would shrug his shoulders and smile. Why they were friends was a puzzle to Greg at first until he realised that they shared a love of arguing, especially with each other.
“No, it’s the truth.” Sara continued, smiling the mocking smile she reserved for these conversations. “And even if you make it ‘til you’re old and grey together,” she paused for effect, shaking her head at Nick’s disbelieving look, “one of you has to die first.”
“That’s total BS.” Nick didn’t sound quite sure though, and Greg thought Sara was quite right. It was sad, but it made sense to him on a gut level that he couldn’t quite fathom. It seemed obvious that anything good and beautiful and perfect, especially something as good and beautiful and perfect as love, would end with the sincere gravity of tragedy. What other fitting end was there? He remembered the explosion of love against his chest that he had felt when he had first kissed this man he loved, and the explosion that had later mirrored it, kissing his back savagely like a furious lover and casting him broken and dismayed amongst the ruins of his happiness. He had survived the accident in the lab, he had built himself up again, but some of his former self had been tarnished somehow; there were still soot marks blackening the pure happiness of his love. This perfect thing that he held now was not his own, but something he had borrowed which could only flare so brilliantly now because it would not last forever, but at the last would wither and die between his grasping fingers.
“Can we change the subject,” Greg asked at last, his eyes round and shining. “You’re going around in circles.” He didn’t tell them that it felt something like they were walking over his grave.
These are two stand-alone extracts from an enormous CSI fic writing project that I started, most likely because there's almost no chance I'll ever actually finish it. You see, I chicken out of sharing fic quite a lot. However it is now late, and I have been up for a long time, so I am going to stop lurking on this community for the first time ever and be brave and post.
Err, I hope you enjoy!
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Summary: This first little fic is a 1000 word Christmas story I wrote in time for the holidays but never actually posted. Set in season three, Nick always goes home for the holidays whilst Greg has... his cat.
Rating: PG
Greg was sitting alone in his apartment, surrounded by clutter that was slightly more seasonal than usual The litter on the floor included empty boxes of dates and cat toys shaped like snowmen. He had strung multi-coloured lights around the room and flung tinsel haphazardly over the backs of chairs, but no matter how much decorating he had done, or how many mince pies he had eaten, there was no escaping that he was feeling rather lonely. It was ridiculous, he thought; he was a grown man, and he didn’t buy into the magic of Christmas crap anymore. It was just another day, albeit one where he had a microwaveable turkey dinner to look forward to. Settling on his sofa with Friederich Miescher purring on his chest, watching yet another rerun of “It’s a Wonderful Life” he debated opening the present his father had sent him; the annual bottle of whisky that he received in the mail with a card that read “with love from Dad and family”, an unintentional kick in the teeth from a man who tried his hardest to keep in touch with a son who was nothing more than a perpetual reminder of a life long left behind. Still, it wasn’t his fault he had remarried. Greg wasn’t going to complain. Okay, so they hadn’t really spoken since he’d gone to college, but he’d raised his son well. Then he’d carried on with life, and Greg was happy for him. He couldn’t begrudge him that. It was no one’s fault but his own that he was moping about in his boxers and an old t-shirt in front of the TV on Christmas Day with a cat named after a dead German scientist. It was strange, but something about Christmas was always so depressing.
Someone knocked at the door, making Greg flinch and Freddy jump to the floor with a yowl of protest. Completely puzzled, Greg prised himself off of the sofa and headed for the door, making some half-hearted attempts to flatten his hair and rubbing his unshaven chin with some embarrassment. He leaned in to peer through the peep hole and a wide grin spread against the wood of the door, which he lazily threw back and beamed at his visitor.
“Nick?”
The other man smiled his consuming smile and hefted the bulging box he clasped against his broad chest. “Merry Christmas Greg-o! Mind if I come in? This stuff is kind of weighty.”
“Of course, man, come in.” Greg stood aside and let Nick march into the apartment, moving straight past the living room and through into the kitchen, where he deposited his box on Greg’s criminally underused dining table and started to empty it of its contents. Greg stood in the doorway watching in confusion as Nick unpacked various sized packages and laid them out orderly on the counter. “Err, Nick? What are you doing here?”
“I’m cooking you Christmas dinner.”
“What?”
Nick paused and looked at Greg, eyebrows raised. “I expect you had some abomination lined up. What was it, Chinese take-out? Pot noodle? One of your infamous burger sauce sandwiches?”
Greg mustered up the dignity to look haughty, not something easily done sporting nothing but underwear with cartoon characters on. “No, actually. It’s a microwave turkey dinner. They’re really good now you know-”
“No, Greg, they’re not.” Nick interrupted. “It doesn’t matter though, because I’m here now, and I am going to cook you a dinner my mother would be proud to call her own.”
“Speaking of mothers, what are you doing here? I thought you were spending the holidays with your parents, on the ranch? The big family Christmas, with all the kids and the pie and the roaring fires? Drinking brandy in the evenings with your dad and smoking a pipe?”
“I don’t smoke a pipe Greg.”
He shrugged. “I know, I just think it completes the image.”
“Uncle Albert smokes a pipe.”
“You have an Uncle Albert?”
“What was your point, Greg?”
“I just meant that you love all that stuff. You were so excited about going home for Christmas; you’ve been talking about it for weeks. So why are you here, now, at two in the afternoon on Christmas Day? You should be with your family.”
Nick put down a stick of butter and turned to face Greg properly. “What do you want me to say?”
“Well, start with ‘I arrived yesterday morning and spent the day drinking brandy and smoking a pipe with my dad-’”
“I don’t smoke a pipe.” Nick interrupted, laughing.
“Right. Uncle Albert was doing the smoking. Then what?”
“Then I mentioned to my mom that I hated her stuffing and she sent me packing straight back to Vegas.”
“Ha ha. Am I going to get a straight answer?”
“Truthfully?” Nick moved across the kitchen to where Greg stood against the door frame and slid an arm around his waist, rubbing his thumb against the small of Greg’s back and looking into his eyes. “I couldn’t bear the thought of you being all on your own. Christmas is about being with the people you love, and I love you, Greg.”
Greg smiled helplessly and leaned in for a kiss. “I love you too, Nicky, and I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” Nick whispered, “’Cause the state I found you in? Approaching Sara levels of crazy-cat-lady.”
“Hey! Are you calling my cat crazy?” Greg laughed, pushing Nick away in mock offence.
“No,” Nick said, pulling him back, “I’m calling you crazy. Those decorations man! It looks like a one eyed midget hung that tinsel.”
Greg leant in for another kiss, shrugging, “I forgot to buy tacks. I must be crazy, though, because there’s a handsome man in my kitchen offering to cook me dinner and I’m not thinking about food.”
“Mmm…” Nick leaned in and kissed Greg again, before pushing him away and heading back to his turkey, laughing over his shoulder. “Well after the drive back that I just had, I’m afraid I definitely am. Go wait in the living room whilst I get this bird in the oven. Go on, get!”
As Greg threw himself back down on the sofa, listening to Nick’s enthusiastic singing in the other room, he turned back to “It’s a Wonderful Life” with a completely different feeling towards the holiday. It was strange, but something about Christmas was always so magical.
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Summary: This second little bit is shorter (600) set post Playing With Fire season three/four. Greg observes Nick and Sara's relationship and thinks about love.
Rating: PG
“All love stories are tragic.” Sara lifted her chin towards Nick, defiantly, stretching the first syllable of “tragic” out in her characteristic drawl, putting an inordinate emphasis on the word and, so it seemed to Greg, almost entirely removing it of its meaning. It sounded lazy, commonplace. It ought to sound quick and painful like the slice of a knife in your gut.
“What? No. No way, that’s ridiculous.” Nick scoffed at her, raising his beer bottle to his lips but not drinking, resting it there against his warm flesh, luxuriating in the feel of the cold glass as his eyes flashed at Sara, anticipating her argument.
There was going to be an argument, Greg knew, and it would complete what was now a familiar scene. The three of them; Sara, Nick and himself, were sat in Nick’s apartment, where they’d come to watch the game. If you asked Greg what game he wouldn’t have been able to tell you. He wasn’t much of a sports fan, but it was something that Nick and Sara shared, and he was too jealous to let that be. He could admit it to himself. He was jealous of their relationship, how close they were, almost like brother and sister at times, with their heated debates and vicious rivalries. Besides, it was these long nights that followed the game that were the main event. As the alcohol flowed so their tongues loosened until finally there came an argument. Sara and Nick never failed to argue, it was inevitable. Their personalities were so different, for Nick was an eternal optimist who could see the bright side in almost all situations while Sara was pretty pessimistic, neurotic and a desperate workaholic. Sara would obsess and brood over any failure, where Nick would shrug his shoulders and smile. Why they were friends was a puzzle to Greg at first until he realised that they shared a love of arguing, especially with each other.
“No, it’s the truth.” Sara continued, smiling the mocking smile she reserved for these conversations. “And even if you make it ‘til you’re old and grey together,” she paused for effect, shaking her head at Nick’s disbelieving look, “one of you has to die first.”
“That’s total BS.” Nick didn’t sound quite sure though, and Greg thought Sara was quite right. It was sad, but it made sense to him on a gut level that he couldn’t quite fathom. It seemed obvious that anything good and beautiful and perfect, especially something as good and beautiful and perfect as love, would end with the sincere gravity of tragedy. What other fitting end was there? He remembered the explosion of love against his chest that he had felt when he had first kissed this man he loved, and the explosion that had later mirrored it, kissing his back savagely like a furious lover and casting him broken and dismayed amongst the ruins of his happiness. He had survived the accident in the lab, he had built himself up again, but some of his former self had been tarnished somehow; there were still soot marks blackening the pure happiness of his love. This perfect thing that he held now was not his own, but something he had borrowed which could only flare so brilliantly now because it would not last forever, but at the last would wither and die between his grasping fingers.
“Can we change the subject,” Greg asked at last, his eyes round and shining. “You’re going around in circles.” He didn’t tell them that it felt something like they were walking over his grave.
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-18 06:01 am (UTC)Other than that, both of these were cute. Heee. Greg would be a cat person, wouldn't he?
*...prod* You will be sharing more, yes?
no subject
Date: 2006-02-18 02:28 pm (UTC)LOL, see now that sounds like an epic project worth undertaking!
I've always thought Greg would have a cat, and that he'd give it some ridiculously geeky name...
I'll share more, just don't prod! *hides*
no subject
Date: 2006-02-18 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-18 06:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-18 06:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-18 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-18 06:01 am (UTC)He remembered...the explosion that had later mirrored it, kissing his back savagely like a furious lover and casting him broken and dismayed amongst the ruins of his happiness.
and
He didn’t tell them that it felt something like they were walking over his grave.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-18 02:33 pm (UTC):)