One Good Man -- part 6/?

[geekwriter143.livejournal.com]

Title: One Good Man – Part Six
Author: geekwriter
Fandom: CSI
Pairing: Greg/Nick
Rating: NC-17
Status: incomplete
Archive: of course (just let me know if it's not the list archive)
Feedback: Yes, please!
Email: geekwriter143@yahoo.com
Series/Sequel: 6/?
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
Spoilers: none
Summary: The morning after, Nick has (a little) time to think.


Nick gazed up at the ceiling and sighed. He wasn't sure what time it was, but from the angle of the light in the room, he guessed it was close to six am. He'd set the alarm for eight to give Greg time to sleep. Their plane didn't leave until one, but between packing, check out, and getting to the airport two hours early, Nick didn't want to take any chances.

Greg had fallen asleep shortly after they got back to the room some time after three. Nick hadn't slept. His body was back on its normal schedule and the dark of night meant that he was wide awake and ready to go.

Even though he was fully awake, he lay with Greg in one of the room's double beds, listening to Greg breathe. Greg's head rested on his chest, one arm wrapped around Nick's shoulder, his leg slung over Nick's hips. He had never been comfortable sleeping that close to someone, but with Greg it was nice. Maybe it was because he wasn't trying to sleep; he was just lying there, awake, holding Greg in his arms and listening to him breathe.

Meth. He'd never known anyone who did meth before. Not personally. Not that he knew of. And he knew Greg liked his stimulants, knew he had a coffee jones to rival the entire department, but the thought of him doing meth was something Nick couldn't quite wrap his head around. He just couldn't see it. Not Greg. Not his Greg.

He sighed and nuzzled his face against Greg's hair. His Greg. The thought terrified him, elated him, made him want to laugh and cry and scream at the top of his lungs.

He'd been so careful for so many years. He'd never gotten involved, had never let his guard down, never even let himself consider the thought of a long-term relationship.

But there he was, somehow, holding a man he'd known for years but had only truly known for less than two days. Christ. He rubbed Greg's bare back gently, slid his fingers over the smooth scars. He was…what? Falling in love?

He shut his eyes tight as he realized that he might be. It was a definite possibility if things kept going the way they had been. Only two days, and already he thought of Greg as his, thought of himself as Greg's.

He wished he had someone to talk to, but this was something he'd never really confided to anyone. Joe, the oldest of his brothers, was the only one he'd ever told the truth, and it wasn't like they'd had a heart-to-heart about it.

They'd been at the shooting range, his family's version of male bonding.

"Hey, Nick," Joe had said. "Don't get me wrong or nothin', but I gotta ask this."

Nick, who had just finished unloading his clip into the paper target, knew what was coming. He couldn't say why, but he knew exactly what Joe was going to ask him. "What's up, Joe?" he'd asked, trying his hardest to keep his voice steady.

"I, uh, not to pry or nothin', but, uh, are you…you know?" He wobbled his hand from side to side. "That way?"

Nick sniffed as he ejected his clip. "Yup," he said. He reached for the box of shells and started loading them into the clip slowly. He didn't look up at Joe.

"And, uh, you're sure about that?"

"I'm sure," Nick had replied.

That had been it. Joe had just nodded. Nick didn't ask how Joe knew and Joe hadn't offered to explain. They went back to shooting targets like nothing had happened. That had been five years earlier, and they hadn't spoken of it since. To the best of Nick's knowledge, Joe hadn't said anything to anyone else, not even his wife, Rita, who constantly hinted that it was time for Nick to find a nice girl and settle down.

No, it wasn't like he could call Joe up to chat about it. What would he say? "You see, my whole life I've just been having anonymous sex with random guys, but now I'm starting to have feelings for a guy I work with, and I'm pretty sure he feels the same way and I'm freaking out." He didn't think it was a phone call Joe would appreciate, even if he had wanted to call him, which he didn't.

He should have known what it was the second he met Tweet. He should have seen the signs—her jitters, her inability to sit still, the tracks on her arms, the scabs on her face that she'd covered with heavy makeup. He'd been working in law enforcement long enough that should have seen it all and it should have immediately added up to equal meth addict, but it hadn't. Because she was Greg's friend and he hadn't wanted to think Greg could go way back with a tweaker. He wondered if that's where she'd gotten her name, remembered the chirping noise she'd made as she first ran at them, the way she flapped her arms almost like wings. Tweak wasn't far from Tweet. He could see easily if that was how she'd gotten her name.

"Stop thinking so loud," Greg mumbled, nuzzling his face against Nick's chest.

Nick laughed softly. "What?"

"You're thinking too loud. You woke me up."

"Well, unless you're psychic I don't see how you can know whether or not I'm thinking at all."

Greg lifted his head up and gazed at Nick with heavy eyes. He yawned and wet his lips with his tongue. "I'm not psychic. Doesn't change the fact that you're thinking at the top of your lungs."

Nick grinned and stroked Greg's back. "Are you talking in your sleep or are you serious?"

Greg dropped his head back onto Nick's chest. "I'm serious," he said through another yawn. "You're wondering if I'm still using. You're wondering if that's why I am the way I am."

"No," Nick said softly. "I know you're not using."

"How?"

"I'd be able to tell."

"No, actually, you wouldn't. You never knew before."

Nick tensed. "What do you mean? Greg, when did you stop?"

"For good? About a year ago."

Nick sat up, and Greg rolled onto his back. "Wait…that was…Jesus, Greg."

"I wasn't an addict or anything. It wasn't hard to quit."

"But the drug tests—"

"I've got degrees in chemistry from Stanford and Berkeley, Nick. You think I don't know how to beat a drug test?"

"But…the evidence. Christ. Everything you processed, if anybody found out…defense attorneys would have a field day."

"I never came to work spun," Greg said simply. "I only did it once or twice a month, if that, only when I had at least a day to crash after I came down."

Nick swung his legs over the side of the bed and raked his fingers through his hair.

Greg sighed and reached out to touch Nick's back. "I knew it would upset you if I told you the truth, but I don't want to lie. Not to you."

Nick took a deep breath, then another. "Were you cooking it?" he asked, afraid of the answer.

"No."

"Don't lie to me. Were you working with us, working with the cops, and running a meth lab on the side?"

"No."

Nick turned to look at him, his mouth in a tight line. "Swear to me."

"I swear," Greg whispered. "I cooked for less than a year, and that was in high school. My heart wasn't in it, and I'd heard too many horror stories. Cooking takes up a lot of time, and it's not just the fumes that can kill you. People will do crazy shit for meth, and the first time I got a gun pulled on me I swore to God I was out of the scene. I swear to you, Nick, that's the truth."

Nick reached out to touch Greg's cheek. "Why, man? How could you keep doing it? How could you do something like that when you knew, when you'd seen what it did to people?"

"For the rush," he said. "Not that I ever did much. I did it maybe twice at Stanford. More at Berkeley. Being back here, being around Tweet and Chase and Marco…that was their thing, you know? When I was around them it was always there, and I ended up doing more than I should have. It's one of the reasons I left."

"But you said yourself you were still using in Vegas."

Greg shrugged. "I didn't for a long time. But then I started dating this girl, and she was into P&P—party and pleasure—so I started it again. I started doing it when we had sex, and then even after we broke up I did it a few times a month when I went out. I know it's stupid, Nick, you have to believe that I do know how stupid I was, but I thought it was harmless. I justified it to myself by saying that it was just like coffee, only in concentrated form."

"Coffee doesn't kill people. People don't kill other people over a single coffee bean."

"I know. I know I was wrong, and I wish I could take it back. I wish I'd never even heard of meth, but I can't change the past." He stroked Nick's arm. "I wish to God that I could."

Nick leaned down to kiss him. "Promise me you won't ever use again."

"You don't need to make me promise, Nick. I've already promised myself."

"Because if anything ever happened to you…" Nick didn't even know what to say. It overwhelmed him, the sudden fear that arose when he thought of Greg getting hurt.

"I won't, baby," Greg murmured, running his fingers along Nick's jaw. "I promise you."

Nick pulled Greg towards him until they were lying on their sides, facing each other, looking into each other's eyes.

"I know it's weird," Nick whispered. "I know this is happening really fast, but I'm crazy about you."

Greg smiled. "I'm crazy about you, too. You know what the weirdest part is?"

"What?"

"The weirdest part is how not-weird it is. How normal it feels. How easy it is to be with you, no awkwardness, no morning after panic."

Nick touched his forehead to Greg's, shut his eyes. Greg was right. It felt like they'd been together for years, he was that comfortable, and he also had the excitement of it being brand new. He didn't know what he'd do now if he lost Greg, even though he'd only just found him. "If anything happened to you," he whispered. "If you did anything like that again—"

"I won't," Greg cut him off. He pulled away from Nick and sighed. "And it's not because I suddenly got religion or anything like that. It's not because I realized that it was morally wrong. I wish I had. I wish that I'd paid attention to the million things that were wrong with it, that I'd stopped being able to justify it to myself, but I didn't. The reason I stopped is because I'm scared. No sudden attack of conscience, just me being scared and selfish and fucked up."

"Baby," Nick murmured, reaching out to touch Greg's face.

"Don't." Greg pushed his hand away. "Don't touch me like that."

Nick sucked in a sharp breath. "What's wrong?"

Greg got out of bed and walked towards the window. The curtains were drawn but he stood in front of it as if he were gazing outside. "I'm not a good person, Nick," he whispered.

"What are you talking about? Of course you are."

"A year ago last April, I took some time off."

Nick nodded. He didn't remember Greg being gone, but he didn't keep track of anyone's vacation time.

"Papa Olaf was having surgery, an angioplasty, so I flew out to take care of him the first week he was recovering. He did really well, came through it like it was nothing, so when he told me that he was fine and that I should take a night off to see my friends, I did." He wrapped his arms around his waist and dropped his head. "I'd seen them in December, and they were doing fine then, but when I got to their place…Tweet and Marco and Chase were living in this fucking dive—no heat, no electricity, the plumbing backed up, the place was just filthy. It smelled so bad, Nick, and they were so fucked up. They didn't have any money. I sent them money all the time, every month, but they could never make it last.

"Tweet had a plan. God, she was so excited. She said they'd make enough money to pay me back." He laughed softly. "She had no idea how much money I'd actually given them over the years. The way she was talking, you'd have thought they'd only borrowed a few hundred dollars instead of thousands. Not that I was expecting any of it back. I took care of them, you know? I didn't expect them to pay me back, but Tweet kept talking about her plan. She was going to start cooking again, and she'd make enough money to get them a good place, to pay me back, to have everything they ever wanted. She had everything set up, had just gotten the red phosphorous she needed that night and she was going to cook…I couldn't let her, Nick. You have to understand that. She was fucking spun, out of her head, I couldn't let her handle those chemicals."

"You cooked it for them," Nick said softly.

Greg nodded. "She would have blown herself up," he whispered. "She would have spilled the ammonia, burned herself, gone blind. So many things can go wrong. I cooked it, made sure the place was ventilated, made sure the shit was clean, pure."

"Jesus, Greg."

"I know," he snapped. "I know, OK? You don't have to lecture me because I know it was wrong. I know I shouldn't have done it. Every time I wake up I pray that it was just a bad dream, that I didn't kill my best friend."

Nick took a deep breath. "Marco."

"I knew something was wrong the second the needle hit his vein. He started to drool, to foam at the mouth. I panicked and called 911. Tweet was hysterical, screaming at me to hang up the phone, that the cops would come and they couldn't have the cops come. I was so fucking scared. I saw my entire life crumble in front of my eyes. Here, Marco was OD-ing and I was thinking about how I was going to lose my job, about how I didn't want to go to jail." He wiped at his face with the back of his hand and Nick could see that he was crying. "Chase and Tweet grabbed the rest of the stuff and ran. I stayed with him until I heard the sirens."

Nick got out of the bed, came up behind Greg and placed his hands on Greg's shoulders. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Greg's body tensed. "That's it? I tell you that I'm a murderer and all you say is that you're sorry?"

"You're not a murderer."

"Of course I am. You know as well as I do that if it had happened in Vegas, if it was one of our cases we'd go after the cook for making shit that was too pure."

"No. Manufacture of a schedule I substance, possession with intent to distribute, but not murder." He kissed the back of Greg's neck gently. "It's not your fault."

Greg pulled away from him, whirled around. "How can you say that? I made meth, Nick, and it killed someone. How is that not my fault?"

"You didn't put the needle in his vein. You didn't make him use. He would have used whether you cooked it or not. And if you'd let Tweet cook…all three of them could be dead."

Greg rubbed his trembling hands over his face. "I tell myself that. I tell myself that every day, but I don't believe it. I'm the one who started it. Sure, Tweet cooked with me in the beginning, but I was the first one to use. I was the one who told them what a great high it was, how it made you feel invincible, how you could study for hours and not get tired. Everything's my fault. Marco's dead, and Tweet and Chase aren't really alive, and it's because of me."

Nick reached up, cupped Greg's face in his hands. "Look at me, baby," he whispered. "You fucked up. You did. You did things you shouldn't have, and it's good that you take responsibility for that. But they have to take responsibility, too. You can't take it all on yourself. You're not responsible for turning them into addicts—they went down that road without you."

Greg looked at him for a long moment, tears welling up in his eyes. "How can you even look at me now that you know the truth?"

"Because I love you." The words were out of his mouth before he could think about them, but once he said it he knew it was true.

Greg's eyes widened and he took a step back. "You…you what?" It wasn't until that moment that Nick realized Greg was as scared as he was.

"I love you."

Greg closed his eyes and tears began to roll down his cheeks.

"Shh, baby," Nick murmured, pulling Greg into his arms. "Hush, baby, it's all right. It's all right. You don't have to cry."

Greg let out a choking sob and placed his shaking hands against Nick's back.

He held Greg close, stroked his hair, murmured soft words. Greg clung to him until he stopped crying, then turned his head up and pressed his mouth to Nick's. Nick was unprepared for the eagerness of Greg's kisses, but he returned them in kind. He felt Greg's hand's grip his hips tight and moaned as Greg began to rock their bodies together.

"Baby," Nick whispered as they parted for air.

Greg silenced him with another kiss and pulled them towards the bed.

He knew what to do without asking, knew what Greg wanted, maybe even what Greg needed. He stretched out over Greg's naked body, kissed him, caressed him, slid his hand between Greg's legs to stroke his cock, fondle his balls.

Greg reached down and grasped Nick's wrist, brought it up to his mouth and Nick shuddered as Greg wrapped his lips around his fingers and sucked gently. He slid his fingers between Greg's lips, then pulled them out, reached down, and pressed his spit-slick fingers against Greg's asshole.

Greg arched his head back and let his eyes flutter closed as Nick's fingers pressed into him, opened him.

Nick kissed Greg's neck, bit lightly at the smooth flesh, worked his fingers into Greg's body and hooked them forward, smiling as he hit just the right spot and Greg cried out and twisted the sheets in his hands.

"Please," Greg panted.

"Shhh," Nick whispered. He reached for the condoms, knelt between Greg's legs and slicked one on. He slid into Greg slowly, groaning at the hot, delicious pleasure around his cock.

Greg wound his legs around Nick's waist, reached up to hold onto Nick's shoulders.

"Feels so good to be inside you," Nick said softly, gazing down at Greg's face. He kissed Greg's forehead, his eyelids, pressed their cheeks together. "Never knew how perfect it would be until I was inside you."

Greg whimpered and tightened his grip on Nick shoulders. He rocked his hips up, meeting every thrust.

"Look at me," Nick whispered. "Baby, open your eyes and look at me."

Greg did. He opened his eyes, damp with unshed tears and reached up to touch Nick's face. He gasped, arched his neck and groaned as Nick pumped his hips in a slow steady rhythm, but he didn't look away. His dark eyes were locked with Nick's, and he stifled another groan. His touch was so light against Nick's skin that Nick sensed it more than felt it. "Love you," Greg whispered. "Love you, love you." His voice was desperate, pleading. "Love you so much, Nicky. Always have."

Nick brought his mouth down over Greg's, not to silence him but to capture those words as surely as he captured the kiss. If he'd been thinking straight he would have run. There were too many potential complications, too much to lose, but he wasn't going to run. He'd never had love before and he wasn't giving it up, not for anything.

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