One Good Man: Part 2a
Jul. 22nd, 2004 04:43 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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nickngregTitle: One Good Man: part two
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Spoilers: None
Rating: NC-17
Summary: While at a conference in San Francisco, Nick gets to meet the beings that spawned and raised Greg.
Disclaimer: They're not mine. If they were, the show would never make it past network censors. Feedback's the only profit I get.
Notes: I based Greg's parents on a completely insane professor I once had. I know they're not exactly representative of most people in their field, but when I thought of Greg's parents I thought of said crazy professor for some reason, so that's what I ended up with.
This is just the first of part 2, I had to split it because it's too long for livejournal
Nick awoke with a bladder so full, it made him think of one of his brother Joe's more colorful sayings. Damn, man, I've gotta piss so bad I can taste it. Not that Nick could taste it, but he did have to piss, and piss bad.
He shivered as he threw the covers back. The air was cool on his skin and he felt goose bumps rise on his arms and the back of his neck as he tried the bathroom door. Thankfully, it wasn't locked and his eyes practically rolled back in his head as he began to release the ache in his bladder.
The bathroom was nice and warm, and once he was done Nick stretched his arms up and clasped them above his head, working out the kinks in his back. "How'd things go with Teresa?" he asked just before he flushed.
He heard a gasp from the other side of the shower curtain and the dull, echo-y thud of what he assumed was a shampoo bottle. "Jesus," Greg said, finally. "Give a guy a heart attack.
Nick chuckled. "Didn’t mean to scare you. Just had to drain the lizard." A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. That was one of Joe's sayings, too. "So?"
"So what?" Greg asked. "I'm naked in here, you know."
"I didn't figure you showered with your clothes on. Damn, don't you have any brothers?"
"Only child. What does that have to do with anything?"
"Five brothers, one bathroom. If a guy's gotta go, man, who cares who's in the shower? It's not like I can see you or anything. Tell me about Teresa."
"Ah, I didn't like her that much. She had a mustache once you got up close, and her hair kind of smelled like cream of mushroom soup."
"She shot you down, huh?" Nick asked.
"Like a Messerschmitt. Are you just gonna stand there and talk all morning, because I'd like to get on with my shower and you're making me self-conscious."
"Sorry, man," Nick said. "Just don't take too long. I gotta take one, too."
"Yeah, yeah. Just shut the door behind you; you're letting out all the steam."
The room didn't seem quite so cold once he was out of the bathroom, but Nick still slid back under the covers. He reached for the remote with the intention of catching the morning news when the phone rang.
"Stokes," he said out of force of habit after he picked it up.
"I'm looking for Greg Sanders," a woman's smooth voice said. Maybe Greg hadn't struck out with Teresa that bad after all.
"Uh, he's in the shower right now," Nick explained. "Can I take a message?"
The woman sighed. "I'm just trying to figure out what his schedule is. This is Annika, by the way, his mother."
Nick grinned. "Oh, hey Mrs. Sanders."
"The last time I spoke with Greg he wasn't sure what the conference schedule would be like," she said. "Jeff and I would like to take him to dinner tonight. Do you know how late the presentations are going to run?"
"Well, ma'am," he said, letting his accent thicken the way he always did when talking to someone's parents, "I'd have to check to be sure, but I think most everything winds up by five, five thirty."
"Mmm, well that works much better with our schedules than what Greg said earlier. What did you say your name was again?"
"Nick. Nick Stokes."
"And you're his…" she paused, and Nick sensed that she was searching for the right word. "Partner?"
"Oh, no, ma'am," Nick said. "Just a fellow CSI. They don't partner us up like they do in the PD."
"Well, Jeff and I would be delighted for you to come along," she said. "We're always glad to meet Greg's friends."
And Nick would have begged off, would have said he didn't want to impose, but he was dying to meet Greg's parents and he knew the rest of the lab would be more than interested to hear about the couple that had spawned the fledgling CSI. "Well, that's right kind of you, ma'am," he said. "I'd just love that."
"Wonderful. Say, Sashi's at eight-thirty?"
"Sure." Nick said. He was about to say something else when he heard the line click. He looked at the phone for a moment before hanging it back up.
"What's wrong with your voice?" Greg asked as he emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam.
"What do you mean?"
"'Why, that's right kind of you, ma'am,'" Greg mocked him. "I'll just saddle up my horse and ride on over."
Nick laughed. "Yeah. Old habit. The deeper my accent, the more parents seem to like me. I don't even know I'm doing it anymore."
"Parents?" Greg asked as he rubbed a towel over his head vigorously to dry his hair. "Whose parents?"
"Yours," Nick said. "Well, your mom."
And if Nick hadn't been so surprised by the look on Greg's face he would have laughed. His eyes had popped wide and his jaw had dropped open in what Nick had always assumed was an expression only possible in cartoons. Greg sucked in a quick breath. "My mother?" he asked in a harsh whisper that was part disbelief and part accusation.
"Well, I…"
"How did you even get ahold of my mother?"
"I didn't," Nick said, not sure why he had to defend himself but feeling like he had to anyway. "She—she called here. You were in the shower. She invited us to dinner."
"Dinner?" Greg asked. "Both of us?"
Nick nodded.
Greg gripped the towel tight for a moment, before chucking it across the room. "Perfect," he snapped. "That's just fucking perfect."
Nick watched him stalk over to his suitcase but didn't say a word. He wasn't sure what to say.
"That's so like her," Greg muttered to himself as he yanked his suitcase open and dug through it. "So perfectly like her to just call, just call and just fucking invite us out to dinner."
"Uh, Greggo, something you wanna talk about?" Nick asked softly.
"No," Greg said, snatching up a rolled pair of socks. He straightened up and sighed. When he looked over at Nick his shoulders sagged. "I'm sorry," he said. He sat down on the end of his bed and started to pull his socks on. "I just…things with my parents are complicated."
"So I take it."
"She's just…I told her no and she just doesn't ever listen to me. She's always so convinced that whatever she thinks is right, never even considers what other people might want. She didn't even say goodbye before she hung up the phone, did she?"
Nick shook his head. "No."
"Typical. They both do it. They think saying goodbye is unnecessary, that hanging up the phone is a more efficient way of ending a phone call."
"If you don't wanna go I'll call her back and—"
"No," Greg cut him off. "No, it'll be fine. I just…I get worked up over nothing. Dinner will be fine. You'll probably love them."
"I'm not so sure anymore."
Greg shot him a wry grin. "Well, you can always tell everybody back at work that you've discovered the underlying reason that I'm the weirdest thing ever to hit the Vegas PD."
Nick felt guilt gnawing at his stomach all through his shower, all through breakfast, even through the morning's presentations. He tried to concentrate on new developments in geographical profiling, but instead he just felt like he'd made an unforgivable mistake. And for what? For accepting a dinner invitation?
He tried to apologize at lunch, but Greg waved him off. "Look, I'm sorry," Greg said. "I didn't mean to freak out like that. It's embarrassing, and for the sake of my pride, will you just forget it?"
Nick could hardly refuse to let a man keep his pride, so he swallowed his guilt and changed the subject, asking Greg how he liked the lecture on the possibility of finding a gene linked to criminal behavior.
By seven forty-five, though, Nick was really starting to regret accepting Mrs. Sander's dinner invitation, especially when Greg emerged from the bathroom with his shirt tucked in, his hair neatly combed and parted on one side.
"All right," he said. "Who are you and what did you do with Greg Sanders?"
"Ha ha," pod-person Greg said, checking his reflection in the mirror.
"I don't think I've ever seen you with your hair combed before."
"And the reason for that is because with my hair combed, I look like a dork," Greg shot back. He smoothed a hand over his hair. "Ready to go? Sachi's is only about a twenty-minute walk from here. Or we could take a cab."
"Walking's fine," Nick said.
On the walk there, Greg started up his narration of the city again, pointing out random thoughts like a house where Janis Joplin had supposedly crashed once, the alley where he and his friends had been mugged by three drag queens with guns, and a corner where they'd once shot a scene for Party of Five.
Nick pretended to be interested in the sites, but he was worried about Greg. Though he wouldn't exactly call them good friends, he knew enough about him to know that when he chattered on and on like that it meant he was nervous.
"That it?" Nick asked as he saw the sign for the restaurant across the street and down about half a block.
Greg nodded and rubbed the palms of his hands on his jeans. He took a deep breath, as if to steady himself. "I should probably warn you," he said. "My parents are analysts."
"What, like stock analysts?"
Greg shook his head. "No. Psychoanalysts. Freudian."
"Your parents are shrinks?"
"Psychoanalysts," Greg said. "Believe me, it would be easier if they were shrinks. Then maybe they'd medicate themselves." He stopped walking as they neared the restaurant and took several deep breaths.
"You really didn't want to see them this trip, did you?" Nick asked, regretting the question the moment it was out of his mouth. He hadn't meant it to, but it sounded like an accusation.
"Look, I know it sounds terrible. I know it probably makes me a shitty son, but they freak me out. It's like I can't sneeze without it having to mean something, can't have a conversation with them without one or both of them digging into my brain." He gripped his head in his hands for emphasis.
"Careful. You're messing up your hair."
"Fuck my hair," Greg said. "I so wish I'd done a few shots back at the hotel bar."
"Well, we passed a liquor store a ways back if you wanna—"
"No," Greg said. "No. Might as well take the punishment like a man. Face it head on without the use of any chemical coping mechanisms, which is so not the way I usually handle things. When I come back for Christmas I get drunk on the plane and stay soused until I'm back in Vegas. It makes for about a week-long hangover, but it's so worth it."
"I…shit, Greg. If I'd known this I'd never had told your mom we'd come to dinner. It's just…you always talk so affectionately about Papa Olaf."
"Yeah, well, how can you not love an 83 year-old man who talks openly about his penile implants?"
Nick laughed. "Christ. And I thought I came from a screwed up family."
Greg sighed. "Everyone comes from a screwed up family. If we didn't, nobody'd ever leave home. Come on. I'll be fine, and if we're late I'm sure my parents will have some Freudian explanation for that that will probably deal with the penis, the vagina, shit, or, if we're lucky, a combination of all three."
"Sounds lucky," Nick said, following Greg across the street.
The restaurant was small and as soon as they walked in Greg sighed and fixed his eyes on a square table near the window. "Jeff," Greg said, walking towards the table, "Annika, good to see you."
And Nick would have asked why Greg called his parents by their first names, but he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.
"This is Nick," Greg said, pulling out a chair to sit down.
"Hey," Nick said, more than a little surprised that neither one of Greg's parents made any move to get up and hug their son. He sat down at the only empty spot left, between Annika and Greg, across from Greg's father, Jeff.
He was surprised, too, at the way they looked. Not that there was anything wrong with them, but they just seemed so…not Greg. Annika was pretty, but not beautiful, her dark hair pulled back in a simple ponytail at the nape of her neck. She wore a black sweater and no jewelry, no makeup. Jeff was even blander, if that was possible. Navy blue sweater, a round face with blonde hair, pale blue eyes, nearly invisibly pale eyebrows. Nick couldn't help but think that Jeff was an eyewitnesses worst nightmare—there was nothing about him that caught your attention, no one detail that popped. And Greg definitely hadn't gotten his good looks from his father's side of the family.
"Jeff and I found the most adorable little antiques store today," Annika said, and once again Nick was startled but tried not to show it. No I haven't seen you in so longs or I'm so glad to see yous, just a story about an antiques shop that Nick was sure Greg could care less about.
The rest of dinner continued on in the same way. Jeff and Annika talked about their latest antiques acquisitions, Greg told them basic information about work, but the conversation never became anything more than small talk. It wasn't at all the way Nick was used to a family dinner being, but since he'd gotten Greg into the dinner in the first place he figured the only thing he could do was help him out. He found that his smile and his thickest accent seemed to charm Greg's parents the same as anyone else's no matter how aloof they were.
It seemed the very opposite from the "brain digging," Greg had mentioned earlier, though he had picked up the fact that Annika was a little pushy. She was the one who directed most of their mindless conversation, and neither Jeff nor Greg seemed inclined to stop her from doing it. In fact, Greg didn't do much talking at all, just answering the odd question one of his parents threw his way.
"Tell me, Nick," Annika said as the waiter brought four bowls of some ice cream whose flavor Nick couldn't quite identify. "What do your parents do?"
"Well, my father's a judge on the Texas State Supreme Court," Nick said, "and my mother's a public defender."
"Interesting," said Jeff. "Is your entire family involved in the judicial system?"
"Pretty much," Nick said. He thought the ice cream tasted a little like tea. "All my brothers and my sister went to law school, and that's what they expected me to do, too, I guess, but I felt more cut out for the other side of the system."
"How many brothers?" Annika asked.
"Five."
"Mmm." She nodded and rested her chin on her hand as she gazed at him. "And you felt the need to differentiate yourself from them. I assume you're the youngest."
"No analysis at the dinner table," Greg said, shooting his mother a dark look.
"It's all right," Nick said. He felt a little bit like they were digging at his brain, but it was better than the mind-numbing small talk "She's right, I did want to be different from them, be my own person. And I think I'm much better as a CSI than I ever would be in a courtroom."
"And why's that?" Jeff asked.
"Well, the courtroom is about flash, about flair, about trying to get people to come around to your way of thinking. Being a CSI is more straightforward. You collect and analyze the evidence, solve a puzzle. You don't have to convince anyone of anything, because the evidence does it for you."
"So you feel that you lack the persuasiveness a lawyer needs in order to be successful?" Annika asked.
Greg cleared his throat. "Let's move on to another topic of conversation."
Annika looked over at her son and sighed. "There's no need to get defensive, Greg." She looked at Nick and smiled warmly. "Greg tends to be overprotective of men he finds attractive," she explained.
And Nick started to wish that they'd go back to the small talk, because he suddenly had a very bad feeling about where the conversation was going.
"Are you lovers?" Annika asked.
"N-no," Nick stammered.
"You didn't seem to understand my question on the phone this morning, so I didn't think you were."
"Do you know many homosexuals?" Jeff asked brightly, as if the dinner conversation hadn't suddenly taken a turn into the Twilight Zone.
"Uh…a few," Nick said.
"The pathology is actually very interesting," Jeff said.
"It became personal when Greg came out to us," Annika said, glancing at Greg briefly, "but of course we were aware of it before that. You can't live in San Francisco for very long without becoming interested in the causes of homosexuality."
"What happens," Jeff said as he leaned in towards Nick, "is that the child becomes stunted during the anal stage, when the primary erotic activity is evacuation of the bowels."
Nick bit down hard on the inside of his cheek and just said, "Mmm-hmm."
"I mean, let's be honest here. It feels good to take a dump. Can we agree on that?"
Nick could see Greg slowly sliding down in his chair. "Uh," Nick said. "Well, I…"
"Of course it does." Jeff smiled and slapped his hand down on the tabletop. "Now, if the child becomes stunted during the anal stage of development, his primary focus for sexual pleasure will be the anus and he'll never move on to the penile stage."
"And," said Annika, "of course every boy is frightened of the vagina, since it represents the void from which he first entered the world and he's afraid that re-entering it will cause him to sucked back into that void."
"Right," Nick drawled. Greg was so low in his chair that Nick was afraid he was going to slide off it onto the floor.
"So, being afraid of the vagina and being focused on the anus as the primary vehicle for erotic feelings combine to form the collection of behaviors that we term 'homosexuality,'" finished Jeff with a pleased smile.
Nick got the impression that Jeff expected him to applaud his stunning conclusion. It was the combination of the wine, lack of sleep, and the shame he felt radiating off Greg's body in waves that made him say, "Yeah, but what if he doesn't take it up the ass?"
"I don't follow," Annika said calmly, the question not offending her the way Nick had wanted it to.
"Well, I don't know for certain that Greg takes it up the ass," Nick said, much more calmly than he felt. "You're just assuming that he does because it fits your theories. Did you ever bother to ask him if he likes to take it up the ass?"
Greg let out a little squeak of laughter tinged with hysteria that Nick figured wasn't a good sign. He knew perfectly well that he wasn't wearing a watch, but he looked at his wrist anyway and said, "Aw, man, will you look at the time? We've gotta go, Greggo, get ready for that presentation tomorrow."
"Oh," said Annika pleasantly as Nick and Greg stood up, "Greg, you didn't mention you were giving a presentation at the conference."
Greg smiled weakly and seemed about to say something, but then changed his mind. "Uh, see you at Christmas," he said before hurrying out of the restaurant.
"What time is your presentation at?" Annika asked and Nick just stared at her for a moment as he realized she had no idea what she'd just done to Greg and no idea that he and Nick were leaving because of it.
"It was, uh, nice to meet you," Nick said. He figured since they weren't big on goodbyes that he wouldn't bother.
He couldn't find Greg at first, then decided to follow the sounds of retching coming from behind a parked car a block away. He got there just as Greg was straightening back up.
"I was gonna ask you if you wanted to go get drunk," Nick said, "but I'm thinking maybe that's not such a good idea anymore."
Greg wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. "I'm all right," he said. "Just dry heaves. It happens sometime when I'm stressed. I'll be fine. And I would absolutely love to get drunk right now."
"Great," Nick clapped him on the back. "Lead the way, city boy."
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Spoilers: None
Rating: NC-17
Summary: While at a conference in San Francisco, Nick gets to meet the beings that spawned and raised Greg.
Disclaimer: They're not mine. If they were, the show would never make it past network censors. Feedback's the only profit I get.
Notes: I based Greg's parents on a completely insane professor I once had. I know they're not exactly representative of most people in their field, but when I thought of Greg's parents I thought of said crazy professor for some reason, so that's what I ended up with.
This is just the first of part 2, I had to split it because it's too long for livejournal
Nick awoke with a bladder so full, it made him think of one of his brother Joe's more colorful sayings. Damn, man, I've gotta piss so bad I can taste it. Not that Nick could taste it, but he did have to piss, and piss bad.
He shivered as he threw the covers back. The air was cool on his skin and he felt goose bumps rise on his arms and the back of his neck as he tried the bathroom door. Thankfully, it wasn't locked and his eyes practically rolled back in his head as he began to release the ache in his bladder.
The bathroom was nice and warm, and once he was done Nick stretched his arms up and clasped them above his head, working out the kinks in his back. "How'd things go with Teresa?" he asked just before he flushed.
He heard a gasp from the other side of the shower curtain and the dull, echo-y thud of what he assumed was a shampoo bottle. "Jesus," Greg said, finally. "Give a guy a heart attack.
Nick chuckled. "Didn’t mean to scare you. Just had to drain the lizard." A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. That was one of Joe's sayings, too. "So?"
"So what?" Greg asked. "I'm naked in here, you know."
"I didn't figure you showered with your clothes on. Damn, don't you have any brothers?"
"Only child. What does that have to do with anything?"
"Five brothers, one bathroom. If a guy's gotta go, man, who cares who's in the shower? It's not like I can see you or anything. Tell me about Teresa."
"Ah, I didn't like her that much. She had a mustache once you got up close, and her hair kind of smelled like cream of mushroom soup."
"She shot you down, huh?" Nick asked.
"Like a Messerschmitt. Are you just gonna stand there and talk all morning, because I'd like to get on with my shower and you're making me self-conscious."
"Sorry, man," Nick said. "Just don't take too long. I gotta take one, too."
"Yeah, yeah. Just shut the door behind you; you're letting out all the steam."
The room didn't seem quite so cold once he was out of the bathroom, but Nick still slid back under the covers. He reached for the remote with the intention of catching the morning news when the phone rang.
"Stokes," he said out of force of habit after he picked it up.
"I'm looking for Greg Sanders," a woman's smooth voice said. Maybe Greg hadn't struck out with Teresa that bad after all.
"Uh, he's in the shower right now," Nick explained. "Can I take a message?"
The woman sighed. "I'm just trying to figure out what his schedule is. This is Annika, by the way, his mother."
Nick grinned. "Oh, hey Mrs. Sanders."
"The last time I spoke with Greg he wasn't sure what the conference schedule would be like," she said. "Jeff and I would like to take him to dinner tonight. Do you know how late the presentations are going to run?"
"Well, ma'am," he said, letting his accent thicken the way he always did when talking to someone's parents, "I'd have to check to be sure, but I think most everything winds up by five, five thirty."
"Mmm, well that works much better with our schedules than what Greg said earlier. What did you say your name was again?"
"Nick. Nick Stokes."
"And you're his…" she paused, and Nick sensed that she was searching for the right word. "Partner?"
"Oh, no, ma'am," Nick said. "Just a fellow CSI. They don't partner us up like they do in the PD."
"Well, Jeff and I would be delighted for you to come along," she said. "We're always glad to meet Greg's friends."
And Nick would have begged off, would have said he didn't want to impose, but he was dying to meet Greg's parents and he knew the rest of the lab would be more than interested to hear about the couple that had spawned the fledgling CSI. "Well, that's right kind of you, ma'am," he said. "I'd just love that."
"Wonderful. Say, Sashi's at eight-thirty?"
"Sure." Nick said. He was about to say something else when he heard the line click. He looked at the phone for a moment before hanging it back up.
"What's wrong with your voice?" Greg asked as he emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam.
"What do you mean?"
"'Why, that's right kind of you, ma'am,'" Greg mocked him. "I'll just saddle up my horse and ride on over."
Nick laughed. "Yeah. Old habit. The deeper my accent, the more parents seem to like me. I don't even know I'm doing it anymore."
"Parents?" Greg asked as he rubbed a towel over his head vigorously to dry his hair. "Whose parents?"
"Yours," Nick said. "Well, your mom."
And if Nick hadn't been so surprised by the look on Greg's face he would have laughed. His eyes had popped wide and his jaw had dropped open in what Nick had always assumed was an expression only possible in cartoons. Greg sucked in a quick breath. "My mother?" he asked in a harsh whisper that was part disbelief and part accusation.
"Well, I…"
"How did you even get ahold of my mother?"
"I didn't," Nick said, not sure why he had to defend himself but feeling like he had to anyway. "She—she called here. You were in the shower. She invited us to dinner."
"Dinner?" Greg asked. "Both of us?"
Nick nodded.
Greg gripped the towel tight for a moment, before chucking it across the room. "Perfect," he snapped. "That's just fucking perfect."
Nick watched him stalk over to his suitcase but didn't say a word. He wasn't sure what to say.
"That's so like her," Greg muttered to himself as he yanked his suitcase open and dug through it. "So perfectly like her to just call, just call and just fucking invite us out to dinner."
"Uh, Greggo, something you wanna talk about?" Nick asked softly.
"No," Greg said, snatching up a rolled pair of socks. He straightened up and sighed. When he looked over at Nick his shoulders sagged. "I'm sorry," he said. He sat down on the end of his bed and started to pull his socks on. "I just…things with my parents are complicated."
"So I take it."
"She's just…I told her no and she just doesn't ever listen to me. She's always so convinced that whatever she thinks is right, never even considers what other people might want. She didn't even say goodbye before she hung up the phone, did she?"
Nick shook his head. "No."
"Typical. They both do it. They think saying goodbye is unnecessary, that hanging up the phone is a more efficient way of ending a phone call."
"If you don't wanna go I'll call her back and—"
"No," Greg cut him off. "No, it'll be fine. I just…I get worked up over nothing. Dinner will be fine. You'll probably love them."
"I'm not so sure anymore."
Greg shot him a wry grin. "Well, you can always tell everybody back at work that you've discovered the underlying reason that I'm the weirdest thing ever to hit the Vegas PD."
Nick felt guilt gnawing at his stomach all through his shower, all through breakfast, even through the morning's presentations. He tried to concentrate on new developments in geographical profiling, but instead he just felt like he'd made an unforgivable mistake. And for what? For accepting a dinner invitation?
He tried to apologize at lunch, but Greg waved him off. "Look, I'm sorry," Greg said. "I didn't mean to freak out like that. It's embarrassing, and for the sake of my pride, will you just forget it?"
Nick could hardly refuse to let a man keep his pride, so he swallowed his guilt and changed the subject, asking Greg how he liked the lecture on the possibility of finding a gene linked to criminal behavior.
By seven forty-five, though, Nick was really starting to regret accepting Mrs. Sander's dinner invitation, especially when Greg emerged from the bathroom with his shirt tucked in, his hair neatly combed and parted on one side.
"All right," he said. "Who are you and what did you do with Greg Sanders?"
"Ha ha," pod-person Greg said, checking his reflection in the mirror.
"I don't think I've ever seen you with your hair combed before."
"And the reason for that is because with my hair combed, I look like a dork," Greg shot back. He smoothed a hand over his hair. "Ready to go? Sachi's is only about a twenty-minute walk from here. Or we could take a cab."
"Walking's fine," Nick said.
On the walk there, Greg started up his narration of the city again, pointing out random thoughts like a house where Janis Joplin had supposedly crashed once, the alley where he and his friends had been mugged by three drag queens with guns, and a corner where they'd once shot a scene for Party of Five.
Nick pretended to be interested in the sites, but he was worried about Greg. Though he wouldn't exactly call them good friends, he knew enough about him to know that when he chattered on and on like that it meant he was nervous.
"That it?" Nick asked as he saw the sign for the restaurant across the street and down about half a block.
Greg nodded and rubbed the palms of his hands on his jeans. He took a deep breath, as if to steady himself. "I should probably warn you," he said. "My parents are analysts."
"What, like stock analysts?"
Greg shook his head. "No. Psychoanalysts. Freudian."
"Your parents are shrinks?"
"Psychoanalysts," Greg said. "Believe me, it would be easier if they were shrinks. Then maybe they'd medicate themselves." He stopped walking as they neared the restaurant and took several deep breaths.
"You really didn't want to see them this trip, did you?" Nick asked, regretting the question the moment it was out of his mouth. He hadn't meant it to, but it sounded like an accusation.
"Look, I know it sounds terrible. I know it probably makes me a shitty son, but they freak me out. It's like I can't sneeze without it having to mean something, can't have a conversation with them without one or both of them digging into my brain." He gripped his head in his hands for emphasis.
"Careful. You're messing up your hair."
"Fuck my hair," Greg said. "I so wish I'd done a few shots back at the hotel bar."
"Well, we passed a liquor store a ways back if you wanna—"
"No," Greg said. "No. Might as well take the punishment like a man. Face it head on without the use of any chemical coping mechanisms, which is so not the way I usually handle things. When I come back for Christmas I get drunk on the plane and stay soused until I'm back in Vegas. It makes for about a week-long hangover, but it's so worth it."
"I…shit, Greg. If I'd known this I'd never had told your mom we'd come to dinner. It's just…you always talk so affectionately about Papa Olaf."
"Yeah, well, how can you not love an 83 year-old man who talks openly about his penile implants?"
Nick laughed. "Christ. And I thought I came from a screwed up family."
Greg sighed. "Everyone comes from a screwed up family. If we didn't, nobody'd ever leave home. Come on. I'll be fine, and if we're late I'm sure my parents will have some Freudian explanation for that that will probably deal with the penis, the vagina, shit, or, if we're lucky, a combination of all three."
"Sounds lucky," Nick said, following Greg across the street.
The restaurant was small and as soon as they walked in Greg sighed and fixed his eyes on a square table near the window. "Jeff," Greg said, walking towards the table, "Annika, good to see you."
And Nick would have asked why Greg called his parents by their first names, but he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.
"This is Nick," Greg said, pulling out a chair to sit down.
"Hey," Nick said, more than a little surprised that neither one of Greg's parents made any move to get up and hug their son. He sat down at the only empty spot left, between Annika and Greg, across from Greg's father, Jeff.
He was surprised, too, at the way they looked. Not that there was anything wrong with them, but they just seemed so…not Greg. Annika was pretty, but not beautiful, her dark hair pulled back in a simple ponytail at the nape of her neck. She wore a black sweater and no jewelry, no makeup. Jeff was even blander, if that was possible. Navy blue sweater, a round face with blonde hair, pale blue eyes, nearly invisibly pale eyebrows. Nick couldn't help but think that Jeff was an eyewitnesses worst nightmare—there was nothing about him that caught your attention, no one detail that popped. And Greg definitely hadn't gotten his good looks from his father's side of the family.
"Jeff and I found the most adorable little antiques store today," Annika said, and once again Nick was startled but tried not to show it. No I haven't seen you in so longs or I'm so glad to see yous, just a story about an antiques shop that Nick was sure Greg could care less about.
The rest of dinner continued on in the same way. Jeff and Annika talked about their latest antiques acquisitions, Greg told them basic information about work, but the conversation never became anything more than small talk. It wasn't at all the way Nick was used to a family dinner being, but since he'd gotten Greg into the dinner in the first place he figured the only thing he could do was help him out. He found that his smile and his thickest accent seemed to charm Greg's parents the same as anyone else's no matter how aloof they were.
It seemed the very opposite from the "brain digging," Greg had mentioned earlier, though he had picked up the fact that Annika was a little pushy. She was the one who directed most of their mindless conversation, and neither Jeff nor Greg seemed inclined to stop her from doing it. In fact, Greg didn't do much talking at all, just answering the odd question one of his parents threw his way.
"Tell me, Nick," Annika said as the waiter brought four bowls of some ice cream whose flavor Nick couldn't quite identify. "What do your parents do?"
"Well, my father's a judge on the Texas State Supreme Court," Nick said, "and my mother's a public defender."
"Interesting," said Jeff. "Is your entire family involved in the judicial system?"
"Pretty much," Nick said. He thought the ice cream tasted a little like tea. "All my brothers and my sister went to law school, and that's what they expected me to do, too, I guess, but I felt more cut out for the other side of the system."
"How many brothers?" Annika asked.
"Five."
"Mmm." She nodded and rested her chin on her hand as she gazed at him. "And you felt the need to differentiate yourself from them. I assume you're the youngest."
"No analysis at the dinner table," Greg said, shooting his mother a dark look.
"It's all right," Nick said. He felt a little bit like they were digging at his brain, but it was better than the mind-numbing small talk "She's right, I did want to be different from them, be my own person. And I think I'm much better as a CSI than I ever would be in a courtroom."
"And why's that?" Jeff asked.
"Well, the courtroom is about flash, about flair, about trying to get people to come around to your way of thinking. Being a CSI is more straightforward. You collect and analyze the evidence, solve a puzzle. You don't have to convince anyone of anything, because the evidence does it for you."
"So you feel that you lack the persuasiveness a lawyer needs in order to be successful?" Annika asked.
Greg cleared his throat. "Let's move on to another topic of conversation."
Annika looked over at her son and sighed. "There's no need to get defensive, Greg." She looked at Nick and smiled warmly. "Greg tends to be overprotective of men he finds attractive," she explained.
And Nick started to wish that they'd go back to the small talk, because he suddenly had a very bad feeling about where the conversation was going.
"Are you lovers?" Annika asked.
"N-no," Nick stammered.
"You didn't seem to understand my question on the phone this morning, so I didn't think you were."
"Do you know many homosexuals?" Jeff asked brightly, as if the dinner conversation hadn't suddenly taken a turn into the Twilight Zone.
"Uh…a few," Nick said.
"The pathology is actually very interesting," Jeff said.
"It became personal when Greg came out to us," Annika said, glancing at Greg briefly, "but of course we were aware of it before that. You can't live in San Francisco for very long without becoming interested in the causes of homosexuality."
"What happens," Jeff said as he leaned in towards Nick, "is that the child becomes stunted during the anal stage, when the primary erotic activity is evacuation of the bowels."
Nick bit down hard on the inside of his cheek and just said, "Mmm-hmm."
"I mean, let's be honest here. It feels good to take a dump. Can we agree on that?"
Nick could see Greg slowly sliding down in his chair. "Uh," Nick said. "Well, I…"
"Of course it does." Jeff smiled and slapped his hand down on the tabletop. "Now, if the child becomes stunted during the anal stage of development, his primary focus for sexual pleasure will be the anus and he'll never move on to the penile stage."
"And," said Annika, "of course every boy is frightened of the vagina, since it represents the void from which he first entered the world and he's afraid that re-entering it will cause him to sucked back into that void."
"Right," Nick drawled. Greg was so low in his chair that Nick was afraid he was going to slide off it onto the floor.
"So, being afraid of the vagina and being focused on the anus as the primary vehicle for erotic feelings combine to form the collection of behaviors that we term 'homosexuality,'" finished Jeff with a pleased smile.
Nick got the impression that Jeff expected him to applaud his stunning conclusion. It was the combination of the wine, lack of sleep, and the shame he felt radiating off Greg's body in waves that made him say, "Yeah, but what if he doesn't take it up the ass?"
"I don't follow," Annika said calmly, the question not offending her the way Nick had wanted it to.
"Well, I don't know for certain that Greg takes it up the ass," Nick said, much more calmly than he felt. "You're just assuming that he does because it fits your theories. Did you ever bother to ask him if he likes to take it up the ass?"
Greg let out a little squeak of laughter tinged with hysteria that Nick figured wasn't a good sign. He knew perfectly well that he wasn't wearing a watch, but he looked at his wrist anyway and said, "Aw, man, will you look at the time? We've gotta go, Greggo, get ready for that presentation tomorrow."
"Oh," said Annika pleasantly as Nick and Greg stood up, "Greg, you didn't mention you were giving a presentation at the conference."
Greg smiled weakly and seemed about to say something, but then changed his mind. "Uh, see you at Christmas," he said before hurrying out of the restaurant.
"What time is your presentation at?" Annika asked and Nick just stared at her for a moment as he realized she had no idea what she'd just done to Greg and no idea that he and Nick were leaving because of it.
"It was, uh, nice to meet you," Nick said. He figured since they weren't big on goodbyes that he wouldn't bother.
He couldn't find Greg at first, then decided to follow the sounds of retching coming from behind a parked car a block away. He got there just as Greg was straightening back up.
"I was gonna ask you if you wanted to go get drunk," Nick said, "but I'm thinking maybe that's not such a good idea anymore."
Greg wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. "I'm all right," he said. "Just dry heaves. It happens sometime when I'm stressed. I'll be fine. And I would absolutely love to get drunk right now."
"Great," Nick clapped him on the back. "Lead the way, city boy."
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