nickngreg | One Good Man -- 4/?

Title: One Good Man – Part Four
Author: geekwriter
Rating: R (or less)
Category: romance, with just a touch o' angst
Status: incomplete
Archive: just let me know
Feedback: Yes, please!
Email: geekwriter143@yahoo.com
Series/Sequel: 4/?
Disclaimers: I don't own the boys or anything related to CSI, if I did, the show wouldn't make it past the network censors
Authors Notes: I planned for this and Part Five to actually be the same chapter, but it just kept getting longer and longer and longer…no sex in this installment, but give the boys a break. They need to recuperate.
Spoilers: up through season four in general, but nothing specific
Summary: It's Greg and Nick's last night in San Francisco, so they get ready to go out. Greg doesn't throw up, Nick doesn't wear eyeliner, and nobody has sex.
Warnings: none

Nick stretched out on the bed after his second shower of the day, a towel wrapped loosely around his waist. Greg was sitting on the edge of the bed flipping through a sheaf of paper stapled at the corner. Nick reached out and rubbed the small of his back lazily. "What you looking at?" he asked in a sleepy drawl.

"Schedule," Greg said. He frowned as he flipped another page. "There's really not much left," he said.

"How do you mean?"

"Well, yesterday they presented the paper on human variables contributing to the imprecision of air-displacement pipettes—which rocked, by the way—and this morning was the lecture on using a Y-STR triplex after autosomal multiplexes, which is by far the high point of the entire conference. This afternoon, though, what is there? Solubility of polylactide fiber? Come on. I read about that in a journal a year ago. Everybody knows you need to rely on solubility testing for PLA."

"It has the same melting point behavior and birefringence as rayon and polypropylene," Nick said, rolling to one side and propping himself up on his elbow.

"Exactly. Even you know that."

"Hey. Hair and fiber analysis is my specialty, you know."

Greg looked over at him sheepishly. "Yeah. Sorry. I got carried away. But my point is that everything I wanted to hear about has already been presented." He flopped down on the bed, either not aware or not caring that the towel around his waist had come undone. He looked over at Nick. "Which lecture are you going to?"

Nick yawned and closed his eyes. "I'm not," he mumbled.

"Can you do that?"

Nick opened one eye. "Do what?"

"Not go. I mean, isn't the point of attending a conference to actually attend the conference?

He yawned again and rolled onto his side, snuggling into the pillow. "I either sleep through it here or sleep through it down there," he said. "Either way, I'm not going to learn anything."

"Huh."

Nick opened one eye again. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

"Greg…"

"I'm just surprised, that's all. You never seemed to me like the kind of guy to cut class."

Nick closed his eyes. "It's not high school, Greg. They're not going to give us detention if we miss one lecture."

"Yeah, but this is my first conference. Sara said it was important to properly utilize my time here, to not let anything go to waste."

Nick sighed and rolled onto his back, then propped himself up on his elbows. "You're taking time-management advice from a woman whose only hobbies are overtime and listening to the police scanner?"

"Well, she does manage to pack a lot of work into every day."

"She's also heading straight towards burnout." He dropped back onto the bed. "You gotta take a break every once in a while. You've gotta know when you're too tired from three rounds of mind blowing sex in less than 24 hours to get up, get dressed, and sit through a lecture that you won't be able to focus on because you're just plum fucked out."

Greg slid over to press his face against Nick's shoulder. "Plum fucked out, huh? Is that a Texan phrase?"

Nick yawned. "Technically, it's 'plum tuckered out.' I took some liberties."

Greg kissed his shoulder gently. "Then go ahead and git you some shut eye, dagburnit."

Nick smiled sleepily.

"Think anybody'd mind if I went to the lecture called 'Corpse as Crime Scene?'"

"I don't see why they would. Like you said, the point of a conference is to actually attend the conference."

"Well, yeah, but I'm not a CSI. I thought maybe I was supposed to stick to the lab rat lectures."

"You're a part-time trainee. Might as well play both sides of the field."

Greg smirked. "Story of my life."

Nick opened his eyes sleepily. "What?"

He kissed Nick's forehead. "Nothing. Go to sleep."

Nick snuggled further into the sheets and sighed contentedly as he heard Greg shuffle around the room, getting dressed. He was asleep before Greg left the room and didn't awaken until he felt gentle fingers against his face.

"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty," Greg whispered, planting feathery kisses along Nick's cheekbone.

Nick groaned and stretched, smiled up into Greg's eyes. "Hey."

"Hey yourself." Greg sat back and trailed his fingers down Nick's bare chest. "Were you asleep this whole time?"

"Guess I was." Nick stretched and propped himself up on his elbows. "Smells good. What is it?"

Greg grinned. "I ran over to a little Greek place down the way. I figured you'd be hungry. I got souvlaki, dolmathes, spanikopita…"

Nick smirked. "Don't you ever eat American food? Like…pizza? Or Chinese takeout?"

Greg laughed. "You're telling me Chinese takeout is American food?"

Nick shrugged. "You know what I mean."

"If we had another day I'd take you to Chinatown and get you roasted chicken feet. Now that's Chinese." He laughed at the face Nick made and patted his leg through the covers. "Come on, get up and eat. I'm taking you out tonight."

Nick pulled on a pair of jeans and sat at the room's small table as Greg set Styrofoam containers of food on its surface. "Where we going?" he asked, opening a container and studying its contents.

"Dolmathes," Greg said. "Lamb and rice wrapped in grape leaves with a lemon sauce."

"Uh-huh," Nick said.

Greg handed him a plastic fork. "Just eat it. They're good. And if you don't like them, that just means there's more for me."

Nick poked at one of the dark green bundles with his fork. "You never told me where we were going."

"I just figured you might like to see some San Francisco nightlife."

"I've already been to the clubs."

"Where'd you go?" Greg asked. "Castro Street?" He scoffed. "That's so not my scene. You'll see. This is real San Francisco, the stuff they don't put in the guidebooks."

Nick had taken a bite of the dolmathes, and he had to admit they were good. "We're not going to end up drunk and half naked, engaged to hairy men named Roscoe, are we?" he asked after swallowing.

Greg laughed. "Only if we're lucky."

They ate in comfortable silence. It was only towards the end of the meal that Nick was awake enough to think to ask Greg about his lectures. "How'd 'The Corpse as Crime Scene' go?"

Greg pursed his lips and toyed with his fork for a moment. "Well, I didn't vomit," he said.

Nick smiled.

"But I really wanted to."

"You get used to it," Nick said.

"I don't know. I think I'm always gonna want to vomit when I see the kind of mutilation they showed us in those slides. I don't care how long I do this—I'll never understand why people do things like that."

"We don't have to understand why" Nick said. "We answer who, what, where, and how. Leave the why to philosophers and priests. I just meant that you get used to the nausea. Just remember to breathe through your mouth and smile."

"Smile?"

"Suppresses the gag reflex."

Greg smirked. "Now, how have I been deep-throating all these years without knowing that?"

Nick smiled back at him. "I didn't know you could deep throat."

"Well, you never gave me the chance." He leaned forward and brushed his fingers along Nick's thigh. "You want a demonstration?"

Nick kissed him, sighing as he felt the other man's full lips against his own. "Later," he whispered against Greg's mouth. "I'm an old man, you know. I need time to recuperate."

Greg laughed at that. "Fine." He patted Nick's knee. "Get dressed."

"What should I wear?"

Greg looked at him for a long moment and bit his lower lip, then smiled a sly smile.

"What?"

"It should be illegal for you to wear clothes."

Nick blushed and ducked his head down.

"I'm not kidding. Although, you're pretty scandalous in just a pair of jeans. We're definitely going to have to cover you up tonight because you just look far too good the way you are right now." He unzipped his suitcase and started digging through it.

"Greg, I'm not wearing one of your zany shirts."

Greg looked over at him with a smirk. "Zany?"

Nick nodded. "Zany."

Greg looked back down at his suitcase. "How about…Marilyn Manson?"

"No."

"Rob Zombie?"

"No."

"The Circle Jerks?"

"Definitely not, Greg. I've got my own clothes."

Greg sighed. "It's just as well. You'd probably stretch 'em out with those hunky shoulders and biceps of yours. It's just…" he sighed and looked at Nick for a long moment.

"Just what?"

"You look like a cop."

Nick laughed. "What's wrong with that?"

"What's wrong with that is that cops aren't exactly welcome where we're headed."

"I'm clean cut, Greg," Nick said, going over to his own suitcase and flipping back the top. "I always have been, always will be." He pulled out the black t-shirt he'd worn out to the clubs their first night there. "How's this?" he asked after pulling it on.

Greg looked at him, then licked his lips. "You, uh, you sure you don't want a demonstration of my deep throat technique?"

Nick laughed.

"I'm not kidding. You put on your glasses and I'm taking you by force, I swear to God."

"You like my glasses?" Nick asked. "I always thought they kinda made me look like a geek."

Greg crossed the room and slipped his arms around Nick's waist. "You're totally hot in your glasses," he whispered, brushing his nose against Nick's.

"You think so, huh?" Nick's voice had dropped to a husky drawl.

Greg nodded, then brushed their lips together. "Definitely," he whispered.

Nick parted his lips, let his tongue slip out to taste Greg's lips, then slip inside the other man's mouth. He slid his arms up Greg's back and pulled him close.

Greg moaned and gripped Nick's ass in his hands, started to rub against him.

"Later," Nick whispered, breaking the kiss. "Old man, remember?"

"You don't feel like an old man."

"Tell that to my aching muscles." He kissed Greg softly and reached up to caress his face. "Later. I promise."

Greg pulled away reluctantly. "OK, but I'm holding you to that promise."

Nick smiled and turned back to his suitcase to find a pair of socks. After pulling them on he stretched out on the bed to watch Greg get ready. He pulled on baggy, worn jeans, held up by what used to be an old GM station wagon seat belt. His green ringer t-shirt was faded and on the front was a distressed screen print of an owl and the words "Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute." Nick liked the way it fit Greg's slim frame—tight, but not too tight. Greg put on a necklace made of chain and a black leather wristband. The black zip-up sweater he pulled on had holes forming along the shoulder seams, and the cuffs were frayed and hung nearly to Greg's fingertips.

"I'll be ready in two seconds," Greg said as he headed towards the bathroom, tapping a pencil against his palm.

"I'm good," Nick told him. He sat up and stretched, found his shoes and slipped them on, then headed towards the bathroom to lean against the doorframe.

Greg was standing in front of the mirror, leaning forward with his head turned to the side. Both his hands were up near the eye closest to the mirror and Nick had to look at him for a moment before he realized that Greg was applying eyeliner.

Greg started to smudge the line with his middle finger when he noticed Nick standing in the doorway. He turned and smiled. "Ready," he said.

Nick was silent for a moment. "Blam," he said, finally.

"Is that good?"

Nick nodded. "I…uh, I never thought I'd like eyeliner on guys, but on you it's…blam."

Greg laughed and leaned back against the counter. "You want some?"

"I don't think so."

"Come on. Just a little bit."

Nick shook his head. "I don't think I'm quite the eyeliner type, Greggo."

Greg smiled and laid the eyeliner pencil down on the counter. "It's just as well. I really don't need you looking any hotter than you already do."

They left the hotel, but instead of getting a cab, Greg led Nick down the street to the bus stop.

"You gonna tell me where we're going?" Nick asked as Greg lounged against the side of the bus kiosk.

"Just a few places where I used to hang out," Greg said, shrugging. "Really low key."

Nick smirked. "Low key? You?"

"Fine. Low key compared to the bars on Castro. No strobe lights, no techno beats, no gym-bunnies flexing on the dance floor. Actually, no dance floor now that I think about it."

"Too bad, I was looking forward to grinding against you on the dance floor."

"Later," Greg said with a wink as the bus pulled up.

Nick wasn't exactly sure, since he hadn't completely gotten a grip on San Francisco's geography, but he was pretty sure they were heading in the direction of the Castro. Greg motioned for him to follow him off the bus before they got there, though, and when Nick looked around he realized they were in a run-down neighborhood, the walls of buildings covered with flyers and graffiti.

"Uh, are we gonna get mugged?" Nick asked as he followed Greg down the dark street.

Greg seemed to think about that for a moment. "It's always a possibility," he said. "But I doubt it. Come on. Moe's is just around the corner."

"Who's Moe?"

"It's a bar. When I was interning with the SFPD I used to come here practically every night."

"Why?" Nick asked. "Is it a popular hangout for known felons?"

Greg bumped his shoulder against Nick's. "No. Well, maybe. But we went there mainly because the beer's cheap and they don't water down their drinks."

Nick was about to reply to that when he heard a high-pitched squeal about half a block in front of them. When he looked up, he saw a girl with black and bright blue hair done up in crazy pigtails flapping her arms wildly as she ran straight towards them.