Forever (Nick/Greg, 2/3)
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nickngreg“Forever” (Nick/Greg, 2/3)
Well, thanks to all of you who left the lovely feedback that’s bolstered my confidence – without further ado, here’s the next chapter. Huge thanks go to the fantastic![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elmyraemilie for beta work.
click here if you missed chapter 1…
Title – Forever
Author -black_dahlia63
Characters – Nick and Greg
Rating – R/NC17? There’s smut, anyway. Eventually.
Spoilers – Play With Fire
Disclaimer – not mine, just borrowing.
They would meet up for dinner once a week, often in a restaurant but not always; invited back to Nick’s apartment, Greg had discovered that his friend was a surprisingly good cook, whereas when it was Greg’s turn to be the host – something Nick had refused to accept until you unpack those damn boxes - he always resorted to one of the takeout menus littering his kitchen counter. Greg began accompanying Nick on early morning runs in the desert when their days off coincided, something he hadn’t found easy at first, but Nick hadn’t cut him any slack; while the first few weeks had found Greg desperately trying to keep up as he watched Nick getting further and further away, it hadn’t taken long before the two of them were pretty evenly matched. Through all this they had talked, sometimes long into the night; this was something Greg hadn’t found easy at first either, but it was another thing that hadn’t taken long to change as the months had elapsed – and he’d found himself developing a growing admiration for Nick as he’d learned what it had been like for him to even admit he was gay, let alone act on it.
In the beginning, Greg had tried to get Nick to go with him when he went to a bar or a club, but Nick had held firm in his refusal, and so the younger man had continued to go on his own; there’d been plenty of occasions when he hadn’t left alone, though, plenty of evenings when he’d climbed out of a strange car outside the lab for the start of a shift – and if Nick had noticed this, he’d never said anything about it.
“Hey, don’t go yet,” Nick says when he sees Greg reaching for the jacket he threw over the back of the couch hours since. “I want to show you something.”
“Never had a guy use that line on me before,” Greg replies, in the same light-hearted tone he always uses at moments like this. “Can’t you think of anything better than that, Nicky?”
“Shut up,” is Nick’s immediate response, but while he’s smiling there’s an anxious look in his eyes that Greg doesn’t remember seeing before. “I want you to have a look at this and tell me what you think, okay?” and he turns his laptop in Greg’s direction as the younger man sits down next to him on the couch. “Just…”
“Wait a second, this is you?” Greg asks, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a smile as he studies what’s on the screen. “You placed a personal ad?”
“I’m not asking you to agree with it, because I know you won’t,” Nick says. “I just want you to tell me if you think I got it right.”
“First of all, you need a photo that shows you smiling, because this one makes you look like your dog died - and secondly, you’ve left a hell of a lot out here,” Greg tells Nick wryly as he scans the lines of closely-printed text. “Some guy’s going to look at this and he won’t know whether you’re a top or a bottom, he won’t know…”
“Maybe I’m not writing this for someone who wants to know that kind of thing right off the bat,” Nick interrupts. “Just work with me here, G, at least pretend you’re on the same planet for once – can you see someone wanting to meet me after they read this?”
“Well, I guess I can,” Greg replies eventually, once he’s read the ad several times. “I still think you ought to mention that thing you can do with your tongue, though,” and he shakes his head in mock resignation. “I’m surprised you didn’t say you liked cuddling.”
“I do, actually, and if you’d bothered to stay the whole night you’d have known that,” Nick says, and he’s grinning as it begins – the familiar banter, the only time that the night the two of them met is revisited. “Not everyone’s as shallow as you, Sanders.”
“What made you take me home that night, then?” Greg asks, and this is a question he’s never actually asked out loud before although he’s lost count of the number of times he’s wanted to. “You’re not exactly the shallow type, why did you do it?”
“Moment of weakness, man,” is the response, and Nick’s still smiling; but something flickers into his eyes as he speaks, disappearing again before Greg’s had a chance to notice it. “I know you think all this is stupid, but…”
“I don’t think it’s stupid,” Greg tells him. “It just isn’t me, that’s all,” and he manages a smile. “I hope it works for you, okay?”
“We’ll see,” is Nick’s answer as he closes the laptop. “You want some more coffee before you go?”
Weeks had passed, and Greg had almost forgotten about Nick’s ad by the time his phone rang one Saturday afternoon. He’d reached towards the nightstand with his eyes still closed, able to make out daylight nonetheless, and as he’d fumbled for his cell he’d groaned inwardly at the knowledge that his plans to sleep in following a week of working nights had just been ruined…
“H’lo?”
“Did I wake you up?”
“Yes,” he says with a grin, seeing no reason to be polite. “What do you need?”
“Are you doing anything tonight?”
“Why, Mr. Stokes,” Greg says, gently mocking his friend’s Southern accent, “are you asking me out on a date?”
“I need a favour,” is the response. “I’m supposed to be meeting someone tonight, he answered my ad and we’ve been talking for a couple of weeks now…”
“Hey, back up a second,” and Greg opens his eyes as he pushes himself upright against the pillows. “Another guy answered your ad and you didn’t tell me?”
“I wanted to make sure he wasn’t like all the other weirdoes,” Nick says, and Greg recalls the emails he saw in the days that followed Nick placing his ad online – most of them requesting the information Nick omitted, nearly all of them accompanied by photos of unvarying indecency. “He wants to meet me for a drink tonight, and I – this is so stupid, man -”
“You want me to come and make sure he isn’t an axe murderer?” Greg says. “I’ll sit at the bar, you won’t even realise I’m there - and if you need an excuse to leave you can come and let me know when you order another drink, and I’ll call your cell,” and he chuckles. “Triple homicide at the Bellagio, something like that.”
“I owe you, Greg.”
“Yeah, you do,” he replies, his slowly awakening brain processing the information that it’s Saturday and he could be spending the evening doing what Nick sarcastically refers to as ‘hunting’; but he’s known Nick long enough now to realise how nervous the older man must be to ask for help like this, and so he doesn’t mind that much. “Just tell me where and when.”
While the bar’s clientele was exclusively gay, it wasn’t a pickup joint like the places Greg usually frequented, but rather somewhere for people to sit down over a drink and actually talk; he’d sat on one of the barstools, drinking Coke because he’d driven there, and he’d watched out of the corner of his eye as Nick walked in and sat in a corner booth. Nick had put on neatly pressed pants and a dark button-down shirt, something Greg had only ever seen him do when he had to give evidence in court; and while Greg might ordinarily have found this comparison amusing, he didn’t now, because he’d been drawn to the tension on his friend’s face. He’d watched as Nick looked at the door and then down at his watch in a seemingly endless loop, a loop that had only been broken once when Nick had turned his head towards the bar and their eyes had met – just for a split second, but Nick’s teeth had flashed in a brief smile before the anxiety returned to his eyes.
When Greg had glanced in the direction of the booth again, there’d been someone sitting opposite Nick; the man’s back had been turned towards Greg, so all the younger man had been able to make out was red hair and broad shoulders beneath an expensive leather jacket. He’d watched covertly as the two men talked, Nick’s head tilted enquiringly the way Greg had seen so many times both in and out of work – then Nick had thrown his head back and laughed, and Greg had turned away with the uncomfortable feeling that he was seeing something he shouldn’t. He’d ordered another Coke, engaged in conversation with one of the bartenders, wondered how much longer this was going to go on…
“Scotch on the rocks and a Bloody Mary.”
“Coming right up.”
“Finally,” Greg murmurs out of the side of his mouth, not turning towards Nick as he speaks. “Time for the triple murder?”
“Don’t think I’ll need it,” Nick says. “He’s actually not that bad, we’re going to walk down the block to Mario’s and grab something to eat after we finish these,” and Greg watches out of the corner of his eye as a folded bill is passed across the bar in exchange for two glasses. “Listen, thanks for this, G, I really -”
“Don’t mention it,” Greg interrupts, still not looking round. “Have fun.”
“Up for a run tomorrow morning?”
“Same time, same place.”
“You’re wasting your time there,” someone says when Greg finally turns his head to watch Nick make his way back towards the booth. “He isn’t your type.”
“Really?” is Greg’s response as he swivels back to face the dark-haired man behind the bar, who’s looking at him with more than a little speculation in his brilliant green eyes. “How do you know what my type is?”
“Lucky guess,” the bartender says. “I’ve seen you around town, you know -” and he leans forward to rest his elbows on the polished wooden surface. A dragon’s tail, inked into his upper arm, peeks beneath the sleeve of his black T shirt, and when he smiles the silver stud in his tongue catches the light; and he doesn’t really need to say what he says next, because the look in those green eyes has already told Greg that this guy’s his on a plate if he wants him. “You want to do something once my shift ends?”
“When does your shift end?”
“Another twenty minutes,” is the response, the words followed by a grin. “Let me get you a drink - on the house,” and Greg accepts another Coke from someone whose name he still doesn’t know; by the time he goes running with Nick early the following morning, his back is scored with scratches and there’s a bite mark on the side of his neck – but if Nick notices either of these things, he doesn’t comment on them.
If it had been anyone other than Nick, Greg would have been prying for the most intimate details during that run; a lot of the casual acquaintances he’d made in Vegas behaved in the same way, freely exchanging information about people they’d spent no more than a single night with, and there were more than a few men Greg hadn’t even slept with who would have been stunned by what he knew about them. But as that first nerve-wracking date had been followed by others, he’d absorbed the basic information Nick had shared without asking for anything more personal; even though there’d been moments when he’d seen Nick looking at him as though almost daring him to say something, Greg hadn’t done it, and he wouldn’t have been able to explain this if anyone had asked him to.
They’d continued their runs, their weekly dinners, their talks lasting well into the night, and Greg had almost been able to believe that their friendship was unchanged by what was happening in Nick’s life. But there was the Hummer with the metallic paint job that sometimes dropped Nick off at work, there were the calls that would make Nick take his cell into another room where he spoke too quietly for the words to be audible – and there were nights when Nick really talked, bringing home to Greg that things were changing after all.
“What’s this?” Greg asks with a grin, pointing to the dry-cleaning bag hanging on the back of Nick’s kitchen door that holds a dinner jacket and dark pants along with a dress shirt. “Where’s your licence to kill, Mr. Bond?”
“Ethan made partner last week,” Nick says, turning his back to Greg as he sets a pot of water on the stove and lights the burner beneath it. “His firm’s organised a dinner tomorrow night – what?”
“Oh, nothing,” and Greg takes a long swallow from his bottle of beer before continuing. “Trying to picture you at some black tie dinner, is all.”
“We’re having a barbecue at his condo Saturday night,” Nick says then, and the casual ‘we’ makes something knot inexplicably in Greg’s stomach for a split second. “There’s people who won’t be at the dinner, and he still wants to celebrate with them - I know you’re working that night, but you could come for half an hour or so before -”
“Hold it right there,” Greg says with a smile, raising a hand before Nick can continue. “I’ll pass, okay? I probably have a root canal appointment or something.”
“You’re doing it again,” Nick says, and although he’s returning the smile there’s a resigned expression in his eyes. “You’ve met him before, he likes you…”
“Well, that makes me feel better,” Greg retorts, regretting the words as soon as they’ve escaped his lips. “Nick, I’m sorry, I just…” and he falls silent, thinking about the handful of times he’s met the red-haired man he watched covertly in that bar months since; he thinks about the corporate lawyer with the expensive suits, the condo that Greg’s never going to be able to afford, and then he looks up again to see Nick watching him steadily. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It isn’t just Ethan,” Nick says, pausing to toss a big handful of spaghetti into the pot on the stove before he turns to face Greg again. “You’re the closest friend I have here, I want you to be there, doesn’t that count?”
“Of course it does,” Greg replies as Nick cocks his head enquiringly. “It’s just…” and once again he’s tempted to explain everything, what happened in California that nobody here knows about – but once again he swallows the urge, pastes a smile on his face and takes another gulp of his beer. “I’ll try and be there, all right?” he says, guilt gnawing gently at his insides, and he fixes his eyes on his friend’s face. “Are we cool?”
“Yeah, we are,” Nick tells him. “You going to get some plates and forks out, or are we just going to put the pots in the middle of the table like we do at your place?”
He hadn’t gone to the barbecue, but then he’d suspected Nick had known all along that he wouldn’t.
There had a weekend trip to Maine a month after that, and when Nick had come into the lab again he’d been wearing an expensive-looking watch; he’d met up with Greg at Denny’s for breakfast after their shift, and he’d pushed his food around his plate without eating more than a few mouthfuls. He’d denied that anything was wrong, but the distant expression on his face had belied the statement - and it had only been when they’d stood in the parking lot, grey fingers of daylight creeping across the sky, that Greg had managed to find words that didn’t stick in his throat.
“Nick, you want to tell me what’s happened?”
“He asked me to move in with him last night,” Nick says, and although Greg’s subconsciously been expecting this it isn’t any easier to figure out what to say now that he’s actually faced with the reality of it. “He said I could take all the time I needed to think about it, but -” and Nick breaks off with a stilted snort of laughter that doesn’t quite ring true. “Go on, whatever you’re going to say, get it out of the way now.”
“I just thought you’d look a bit happier about it, that’s all,” Greg replies; at any other time, he might have made one of his typical smartass remarks, but he can’t seem to manage it now. “Isn’t this what you placed that ad for?”
“It isn’t that easy,” Nick says, cramming his hands in his pockets. “I thought it was going to be, but it isn’t, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“You’re supposed to do what feels right,” Greg tells him. “Remember when I told you I was thinking of going out into the field? Even though it’ll mean taking a pay cut? You said if it felt right then I should do it, because everything else would work itself out. I might not buy into this happy ever after thing, but I know you do, and if you’ve got a chance at it I think you should take it.”
“What if I’m not the right person for him?”
“He’d be lucky to get you,” Greg says; he’s got no idea where these words are coming from, and the resulting awkwardness makes his smartass side come to the fore again. “See, this is what being in a relationship does to people, which is why -”
“- you don’t bother with them, I know,” Nick replies. “I knew I should have listened to you, G, you were right all along,” and although there’s a smile on his lips the rest of his face doesn’t seem to match it; after a moment or two he opens his mouth again as though he’s about to say something else, but then he shakes his head and reaches in his pocket for the keys to his truck. “I’ll see you in two days.”
“Call if you need to,” Greg tells him, and after receiving another weak smile in response he watches Nick open the driver’s side door of his truck. He watches it leave the parking lot until the taillights are no longer visible, and then he gets into the driver’s seat of his car – and as he makes his way home, he can’t get that haunted expression on Nick’s face out of his mind.
There had been no call, and by the time they’d met up at work two days later it was all over.
“You want to come by and have dinner tonight?”
“That’d be good,” Greg replies, turning with his car keys clutched in one hand. They haven’t had time to do more than nod in passing during the previous eight hours, because the shift was even more of a bitch than usual; when he looks at Nick now, he sees that even though the older man’s smiling there are dark shadows beneath his eyes – and as Nick raises one hand to put his sunglasses on, his sleeve falls back to reveal that the watch is gone.
“Nick -?”
“Eight o’clock sound okay?” Nick asks, every muscle in his face pulled taut – a mute signal that Greg might sense what’s happened but he’d better not ask about it, and Greg picks up on this signal immediately; he hears himself tell Nick yes, eight o’clock sounds good, and before he can say anything else Nick has climbed into his truck. Minutes later he’s in his own car heading out of the parking lot, CD player cranked up as high as it will go; and as he makes his way home, guilt twists sickeningly in the pit of his stomach…because this is his friend, he shouldn’t feel happy about what he’s just found out – but he does, and he can’t figure out why.
The work involved in dinner at Nick’s apartment had been pretty evenly split that night, the same way it had always been; Nick would cook while Greg did the dishes afterwards, a decision that had been mutually reached after Greg’s attempts at helping with the food had set off the smoke alarm three weeks in a row.
The meal itself would normally have been accompanied by the banter the two of them had become so used to exchanging since they’d become friends, but not this evening. Every so often one or other of them had begun to speak and then stopped, as though they’d thought better of it - until eventually, Nick had pushed his plate away and looked across the table.
“Well, we’re not seeing each other any longer,” and the simplicity of the words brings that guilt to the forefront of Greg’s mind again; he is speechless for some time as he tries to figure out what he’s supposed to say, and before he’s figured it out Nick speaks again.
“You remember what I told you the night I met him? No, of course you don’t, it was months ago…”
“He’s actually not that bad,” Greg says before he can stop himself. “Right?”
“Yeah,” Nick says, looking at Greg in mild surprise before staring down at his hands. “I thought it would change, but it never did.”
“Change?”
“I wanted to look at him and feel it here,” Nick answers quietly, bringing a hand up to rest over his heart for a second or two. “I kept hoping I would, it just never happened,” and he sighs gently. “He was funny, he was good to me, it just wasn’t enough.”
“He just made partner, he had a huge condo and a Hummer with a custom paint job – wasn’t that enough?” Greg asks, a smile appearing on his lips even though he’s never felt less like smiling in his life - and he knows he ought to stop, but he can’t make himself do it. “I’d have thought you could make it be,” and he feels something swelling in his throat as he continues. “There is no love at first sight, Nick, people aren’t meant to walk off into the sunset…”
“Why don’t you tell me what you really think?” Nick says, and there’s an undercurrent in the words that Greg picks up on - unlike the night they met - making something jolt in his gut before vanishing as quickly as it appeared. “I didn’t have you down as the jealous type,” he continues, and that’s when Greg pushes his chair back; crossing the room, he turns on the faucet and starts shoving dishes and cutlery into the sink, and when he begins speaking he doesn’t turn round.
“I had this friend when I lived out in California,” he says, and there’s a tightness in the back of his throat, because no matter how many years might have passed the memory hurts just as much now as it ever did. “His name was Eddie, he was my best friend right from the fifth grade, and even when I told him I was gay it didn’t freak him out,” and he turns off the faucet before resting his hands on the edge of the sink and staring at the wall. “He became a cop, it was all he’d ever wanted to do ever since I’d known him, but we still got together as much as we could – and then he met this girl.”
He breaks off then, swallowing hard as he regains his composure, and eventually he continues speaking while his hands grip the edge of the sink so tightly his knuckles turn white. “Nothing really changed until she saw me coming out of a club one night with some guy, and then she said…”
“Greg -”
“No, Nick, you wanted to know what my problem was, you listen,” Greg says, squeezing his eyes shut. “She told him she didn’t want him hanging around with a fag, and he said she was just going to have to deal with it. I told him maybe I should back off for a bit, and he told me no, because it wasn’t like I was ever going to convert him,” and there’s another silence that lasts far too long. “He laughed it off, said she’d come round in the end, and we went to a ballgame that night just like we planned – it was three or four days after that before I saw him again, we were meeting up for lunch, and he had a black eye.”
He lowers his head, sucks in another breath and tries to forget the images that have never really left his mind despite countless attempts to suppress them. “He told me it happened at work, but I knew she’d done it – I kept after him and he admitted it, he could never hide anything from me for very long,” he continues, his voice unconsciously changing in pitch to mimic that of his best friend. “You don’t understand, she’s had a hard life, she’s sorry,” and he blinks rapidly, because damn it Nick is not going to see him cry.
“We always met up for dinner on a Saturday night when we weren’t working, and he said maybe we’d better forget it that week – so I said fine, we’ll do it next Saturday, and every week there was another reason why it didn’t happen. He’d call me on the phone, but he always sounded like he had to be somewhere else in five minutes – six months after they started dating she was pregnant, and then I didn’t hear from him for…well, I don’t know how long it was, but he finally called me the day after my birthday and asked if he could come by, and he just looked so tired – no, let me finish, dammit!” and he manages to raise one hand for silence before Nick has done anything more than say his name again.
“He looked so tired, like she’d sucked everything out of him, and he sat in my living room and cried – said he’d wanted to tell me about what was going on for months, but he’d been too ashamed. It wasn’t just me he cut off, he wasn’t going out with the guys from work any longer either, because the last time he went bowling with them and stayed out past midnight she bent one of his fingers back so far she broke it – he was taller then me, Nick, he was built like a freaking football player, and he let it go on because he loved her and every time something happened she’d tell him it was the last time. I never heard him apologise to me before, but he did that night, he told me he was sorry for being such an asshole and I – I said he didn’t need to, I offered to pull out the couch and let him stay the night but he told me he wasn’t going to just leave her without an explanation -” He stares at the wall above the sink, feeling tears spilling down his cheeks but no longer caring, because this is the first time he’s ever let this out and his defences have come down too far for him to stop now.
“I called him in the morning and a detective answered the phone, she’d stabbed him and he’d died by the time the paramedics got there,” he says, his voice starting to crack as he forces himself to turn round. “And you know what I said? I said if that’s what caring about someone does to you, I don’t want it,” and he rubs the heel of one hand across his eyes before looking at Nick, who’s staring at him with his mouth half-open. “You wanted to know what my problem with relationships was? Well, now you do,” he says, and he moves to grab his jacket from the back of the chair.
“Greg, wait.”
“No,” he says, his self-control hanging by a thread. “Whatever it is, I can’t,” and he’s stumbled out of the apartment before Nick can do or say anything else. The elevator seems to take forever to arrive, and when he finally makes it outside the warm air against his face makes him feel like throwing up – but he leans against the lobby door and takes huge breaths until the sensation passes, and all he’s left with as he reaches for his cell to call a cab is the feeling that he’s completely alone.
He’d had the cab driver take him to the club he favoured on his ‘hunting’ nights, seeking solace in the music and the crush of bodies on the dance floor and the warmth of someone’s skin against his own – and he’d spent less than an hour there before ending up in someone’s apartment five blocks from the club. There’d been no name and phone number this time, merely the wordless handing over of a condom – because no matter how much the night’s events might have blinded him, he hadn’t become reckless - and by the time he was in another cab heading home, hollow and aching despite the physical release he’d achieved, he hadn’t been able to remember his partner’s face.
Back at his apartment, the light on his answering machine had been blinking, and when he’d taken his cell from his pocket he’d found half a dozen missed calls – all from the same number. He’d sat on the edge of his bed, wanting so badly to return the call, but something had prevented him – a feeling he couldn’t explain, the same thing that had made him turn away the night he’d sat in that bar and seen Nick throw back his head and laugh at something Ethan had said.
He’d arrived at the lab the following day with a headache and shadows under his eyes, because he hadn’t managed to get to sleep until an hour and a half before his alarm had gone off; Grissom had raised a brow when they’d met in the corridor outside the DNA lab, but he’d evidently been too preoccupied to say anything – something for which Greg had been more than a little grateful as he set to work on the customary backlog of cases vying for his attention…
“Greg?” A familiar voice, making something pull inside his chest, and it’s some time before he looks up from his microscope; when he does, Nick’s leaning in the doorway with his thumbs hooked in his belt loops and concern in his dark eyes. “I tried -” and Nick breaks off, as though what he started to say wasn’t what he meant. “Did you get any sleep?”
“Some,” Greg tells him, managing to keep his voice even and smile as he speaks – not knowing why it’s so important to do this now, just knowing it is. “Went out, got back late, you know me.”
“I’m sorry,” Nick continues then, taking a handful of steps that bring him within touching distance. “For making you dig that up last night, I -” and Greg holds up a hand to silence him; whatever was pulling in his chest hurts now, making it hard for him to breathe, and it takes him what seems forever to swallow it down and speak.
“Forget it,” he says eventually, his smile pulling every muscle taut. “Water under the bridge, man, you weren’t to know.”
“Nick!” a voice calls from the hall. “I have something on one of those tapes you need to hear…”
“Be right there!” Nick calls back over his shoulder, and then he turns back towards Greg. “Are you okay?” he asks, the tone of the words low and uncertain.
“I’m okay,” Greg replies, unable to define the expression in his friend’s eyes or to avert his gaze from it. “Just tired, that’s all.”
“You want to do something after work?” Nick asks. “Coffee or something? I think we ought to talk about this.”
“Yeah,” Greg tells him, the tightness inside him loosening a little but not nearly enough, and he sees something in Nick’s eyes that looks a lot like relief. “Go see what Archie wants,” and he watches Nick’s retreating back for a long time before turning back to his work; three cases to handle, he’s got to stay sharp…
…and by the end of the afternoon, everything had changed.
He lies on his side, dimly aware of smoke and muffled voices talking about vitals and partial to full-thickness burns; then he’s carried outside where the light’s too bright, making him squeeze his eyes shut, and is that a helicopter up there?
What the hell just happened?
He needs to have someone find Nick, he needs them to tell Nick he won’t be meeting him for coffee, but he can’t make his lips move before he’s lifted up into the ambulance; it seems easier to keep his eyes closed, so he does that, and as the ambulance starts moving he lets everything slip away.
Concludes soon…
Well, thanks to all of you who left the lovely feedback that’s bolstered my confidence – without further ado, here’s the next chapter. Huge thanks go to the fantastic
elmyraemilie for beta work.click here if you missed chapter 1…
Title – Forever
Author -
black_dahlia63Characters – Nick and Greg
Rating – R/NC17? There’s smut, anyway. Eventually.
Spoilers – Play With Fire
Disclaimer – not mine, just borrowing.
They would meet up for dinner once a week, often in a restaurant but not always; invited back to Nick’s apartment, Greg had discovered that his friend was a surprisingly good cook, whereas when it was Greg’s turn to be the host – something Nick had refused to accept until you unpack those damn boxes - he always resorted to one of the takeout menus littering his kitchen counter. Greg began accompanying Nick on early morning runs in the desert when their days off coincided, something he hadn’t found easy at first, but Nick hadn’t cut him any slack; while the first few weeks had found Greg desperately trying to keep up as he watched Nick getting further and further away, it hadn’t taken long before the two of them were pretty evenly matched. Through all this they had talked, sometimes long into the night; this was something Greg hadn’t found easy at first either, but it was another thing that hadn’t taken long to change as the months had elapsed – and he’d found himself developing a growing admiration for Nick as he’d learned what it had been like for him to even admit he was gay, let alone act on it.
In the beginning, Greg had tried to get Nick to go with him when he went to a bar or a club, but Nick had held firm in his refusal, and so the younger man had continued to go on his own; there’d been plenty of occasions when he hadn’t left alone, though, plenty of evenings when he’d climbed out of a strange car outside the lab for the start of a shift – and if Nick had noticed this, he’d never said anything about it.
“Hey, don’t go yet,” Nick says when he sees Greg reaching for the jacket he threw over the back of the couch hours since. “I want to show you something.”
“Never had a guy use that line on me before,” Greg replies, in the same light-hearted tone he always uses at moments like this. “Can’t you think of anything better than that, Nicky?”
“Shut up,” is Nick’s immediate response, but while he’s smiling there’s an anxious look in his eyes that Greg doesn’t remember seeing before. “I want you to have a look at this and tell me what you think, okay?” and he turns his laptop in Greg’s direction as the younger man sits down next to him on the couch. “Just…”
“Wait a second, this is you?” Greg asks, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a smile as he studies what’s on the screen. “You placed a personal ad?”
“I’m not asking you to agree with it, because I know you won’t,” Nick says. “I just want you to tell me if you think I got it right.”
“First of all, you need a photo that shows you smiling, because this one makes you look like your dog died - and secondly, you’ve left a hell of a lot out here,” Greg tells Nick wryly as he scans the lines of closely-printed text. “Some guy’s going to look at this and he won’t know whether you’re a top or a bottom, he won’t know…”
“Maybe I’m not writing this for someone who wants to know that kind of thing right off the bat,” Nick interrupts. “Just work with me here, G, at least pretend you’re on the same planet for once – can you see someone wanting to meet me after they read this?”
“Well, I guess I can,” Greg replies eventually, once he’s read the ad several times. “I still think you ought to mention that thing you can do with your tongue, though,” and he shakes his head in mock resignation. “I’m surprised you didn’t say you liked cuddling.”
“I do, actually, and if you’d bothered to stay the whole night you’d have known that,” Nick says, and he’s grinning as it begins – the familiar banter, the only time that the night the two of them met is revisited. “Not everyone’s as shallow as you, Sanders.”
“What made you take me home that night, then?” Greg asks, and this is a question he’s never actually asked out loud before although he’s lost count of the number of times he’s wanted to. “You’re not exactly the shallow type, why did you do it?”
“Moment of weakness, man,” is the response, and Nick’s still smiling; but something flickers into his eyes as he speaks, disappearing again before Greg’s had a chance to notice it. “I know you think all this is stupid, but…”
“I don’t think it’s stupid,” Greg tells him. “It just isn’t me, that’s all,” and he manages a smile. “I hope it works for you, okay?”
“We’ll see,” is Nick’s answer as he closes the laptop. “You want some more coffee before you go?”
Weeks had passed, and Greg had almost forgotten about Nick’s ad by the time his phone rang one Saturday afternoon. He’d reached towards the nightstand with his eyes still closed, able to make out daylight nonetheless, and as he’d fumbled for his cell he’d groaned inwardly at the knowledge that his plans to sleep in following a week of working nights had just been ruined…
“H’lo?”
“Did I wake you up?”
“Yes,” he says with a grin, seeing no reason to be polite. “What do you need?”
“Are you doing anything tonight?”
“Why, Mr. Stokes,” Greg says, gently mocking his friend’s Southern accent, “are you asking me out on a date?”
“I need a favour,” is the response. “I’m supposed to be meeting someone tonight, he answered my ad and we’ve been talking for a couple of weeks now…”
“Hey, back up a second,” and Greg opens his eyes as he pushes himself upright against the pillows. “Another guy answered your ad and you didn’t tell me?”
“I wanted to make sure he wasn’t like all the other weirdoes,” Nick says, and Greg recalls the emails he saw in the days that followed Nick placing his ad online – most of them requesting the information Nick omitted, nearly all of them accompanied by photos of unvarying indecency. “He wants to meet me for a drink tonight, and I – this is so stupid, man -”
“You want me to come and make sure he isn’t an axe murderer?” Greg says. “I’ll sit at the bar, you won’t even realise I’m there - and if you need an excuse to leave you can come and let me know when you order another drink, and I’ll call your cell,” and he chuckles. “Triple homicide at the Bellagio, something like that.”
“I owe you, Greg.”
“Yeah, you do,” he replies, his slowly awakening brain processing the information that it’s Saturday and he could be spending the evening doing what Nick sarcastically refers to as ‘hunting’; but he’s known Nick long enough now to realise how nervous the older man must be to ask for help like this, and so he doesn’t mind that much. “Just tell me where and when.”
While the bar’s clientele was exclusively gay, it wasn’t a pickup joint like the places Greg usually frequented, but rather somewhere for people to sit down over a drink and actually talk; he’d sat on one of the barstools, drinking Coke because he’d driven there, and he’d watched out of the corner of his eye as Nick walked in and sat in a corner booth. Nick had put on neatly pressed pants and a dark button-down shirt, something Greg had only ever seen him do when he had to give evidence in court; and while Greg might ordinarily have found this comparison amusing, he didn’t now, because he’d been drawn to the tension on his friend’s face. He’d watched as Nick looked at the door and then down at his watch in a seemingly endless loop, a loop that had only been broken once when Nick had turned his head towards the bar and their eyes had met – just for a split second, but Nick’s teeth had flashed in a brief smile before the anxiety returned to his eyes.
When Greg had glanced in the direction of the booth again, there’d been someone sitting opposite Nick; the man’s back had been turned towards Greg, so all the younger man had been able to make out was red hair and broad shoulders beneath an expensive leather jacket. He’d watched covertly as the two men talked, Nick’s head tilted enquiringly the way Greg had seen so many times both in and out of work – then Nick had thrown his head back and laughed, and Greg had turned away with the uncomfortable feeling that he was seeing something he shouldn’t. He’d ordered another Coke, engaged in conversation with one of the bartenders, wondered how much longer this was going to go on…
“Scotch on the rocks and a Bloody Mary.”
“Coming right up.”
“Finally,” Greg murmurs out of the side of his mouth, not turning towards Nick as he speaks. “Time for the triple murder?”
“Don’t think I’ll need it,” Nick says. “He’s actually not that bad, we’re going to walk down the block to Mario’s and grab something to eat after we finish these,” and Greg watches out of the corner of his eye as a folded bill is passed across the bar in exchange for two glasses. “Listen, thanks for this, G, I really -”
“Don’t mention it,” Greg interrupts, still not looking round. “Have fun.”
“Up for a run tomorrow morning?”
“Same time, same place.”
“You’re wasting your time there,” someone says when Greg finally turns his head to watch Nick make his way back towards the booth. “He isn’t your type.”
“Really?” is Greg’s response as he swivels back to face the dark-haired man behind the bar, who’s looking at him with more than a little speculation in his brilliant green eyes. “How do you know what my type is?”
“Lucky guess,” the bartender says. “I’ve seen you around town, you know -” and he leans forward to rest his elbows on the polished wooden surface. A dragon’s tail, inked into his upper arm, peeks beneath the sleeve of his black T shirt, and when he smiles the silver stud in his tongue catches the light; and he doesn’t really need to say what he says next, because the look in those green eyes has already told Greg that this guy’s his on a plate if he wants him. “You want to do something once my shift ends?”
“When does your shift end?”
“Another twenty minutes,” is the response, the words followed by a grin. “Let me get you a drink - on the house,” and Greg accepts another Coke from someone whose name he still doesn’t know; by the time he goes running with Nick early the following morning, his back is scored with scratches and there’s a bite mark on the side of his neck – but if Nick notices either of these things, he doesn’t comment on them.
If it had been anyone other than Nick, Greg would have been prying for the most intimate details during that run; a lot of the casual acquaintances he’d made in Vegas behaved in the same way, freely exchanging information about people they’d spent no more than a single night with, and there were more than a few men Greg hadn’t even slept with who would have been stunned by what he knew about them. But as that first nerve-wracking date had been followed by others, he’d absorbed the basic information Nick had shared without asking for anything more personal; even though there’d been moments when he’d seen Nick looking at him as though almost daring him to say something, Greg hadn’t done it, and he wouldn’t have been able to explain this if anyone had asked him to.
They’d continued their runs, their weekly dinners, their talks lasting well into the night, and Greg had almost been able to believe that their friendship was unchanged by what was happening in Nick’s life. But there was the Hummer with the metallic paint job that sometimes dropped Nick off at work, there were the calls that would make Nick take his cell into another room where he spoke too quietly for the words to be audible – and there were nights when Nick really talked, bringing home to Greg that things were changing after all.
“What’s this?” Greg asks with a grin, pointing to the dry-cleaning bag hanging on the back of Nick’s kitchen door that holds a dinner jacket and dark pants along with a dress shirt. “Where’s your licence to kill, Mr. Bond?”
“Ethan made partner last week,” Nick says, turning his back to Greg as he sets a pot of water on the stove and lights the burner beneath it. “His firm’s organised a dinner tomorrow night – what?”
“Oh, nothing,” and Greg takes a long swallow from his bottle of beer before continuing. “Trying to picture you at some black tie dinner, is all.”
“We’re having a barbecue at his condo Saturday night,” Nick says then, and the casual ‘we’ makes something knot inexplicably in Greg’s stomach for a split second. “There’s people who won’t be at the dinner, and he still wants to celebrate with them - I know you’re working that night, but you could come for half an hour or so before -”
“Hold it right there,” Greg says with a smile, raising a hand before Nick can continue. “I’ll pass, okay? I probably have a root canal appointment or something.”
“You’re doing it again,” Nick says, and although he’s returning the smile there’s a resigned expression in his eyes. “You’ve met him before, he likes you…”
“Well, that makes me feel better,” Greg retorts, regretting the words as soon as they’ve escaped his lips. “Nick, I’m sorry, I just…” and he falls silent, thinking about the handful of times he’s met the red-haired man he watched covertly in that bar months since; he thinks about the corporate lawyer with the expensive suits, the condo that Greg’s never going to be able to afford, and then he looks up again to see Nick watching him steadily. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It isn’t just Ethan,” Nick says, pausing to toss a big handful of spaghetti into the pot on the stove before he turns to face Greg again. “You’re the closest friend I have here, I want you to be there, doesn’t that count?”
“Of course it does,” Greg replies as Nick cocks his head enquiringly. “It’s just…” and once again he’s tempted to explain everything, what happened in California that nobody here knows about – but once again he swallows the urge, pastes a smile on his face and takes another gulp of his beer. “I’ll try and be there, all right?” he says, guilt gnawing gently at his insides, and he fixes his eyes on his friend’s face. “Are we cool?”
“Yeah, we are,” Nick tells him. “You going to get some plates and forks out, or are we just going to put the pots in the middle of the table like we do at your place?”
He hadn’t gone to the barbecue, but then he’d suspected Nick had known all along that he wouldn’t.
There had a weekend trip to Maine a month after that, and when Nick had come into the lab again he’d been wearing an expensive-looking watch; he’d met up with Greg at Denny’s for breakfast after their shift, and he’d pushed his food around his plate without eating more than a few mouthfuls. He’d denied that anything was wrong, but the distant expression on his face had belied the statement - and it had only been when they’d stood in the parking lot, grey fingers of daylight creeping across the sky, that Greg had managed to find words that didn’t stick in his throat.
“Nick, you want to tell me what’s happened?”
“He asked me to move in with him last night,” Nick says, and although Greg’s subconsciously been expecting this it isn’t any easier to figure out what to say now that he’s actually faced with the reality of it. “He said I could take all the time I needed to think about it, but -” and Nick breaks off with a stilted snort of laughter that doesn’t quite ring true. “Go on, whatever you’re going to say, get it out of the way now.”
“I just thought you’d look a bit happier about it, that’s all,” Greg replies; at any other time, he might have made one of his typical smartass remarks, but he can’t seem to manage it now. “Isn’t this what you placed that ad for?”
“It isn’t that easy,” Nick says, cramming his hands in his pockets. “I thought it was going to be, but it isn’t, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“You’re supposed to do what feels right,” Greg tells him. “Remember when I told you I was thinking of going out into the field? Even though it’ll mean taking a pay cut? You said if it felt right then I should do it, because everything else would work itself out. I might not buy into this happy ever after thing, but I know you do, and if you’ve got a chance at it I think you should take it.”
“What if I’m not the right person for him?”
“He’d be lucky to get you,” Greg says; he’s got no idea where these words are coming from, and the resulting awkwardness makes his smartass side come to the fore again. “See, this is what being in a relationship does to people, which is why -”
“- you don’t bother with them, I know,” Nick replies. “I knew I should have listened to you, G, you were right all along,” and although there’s a smile on his lips the rest of his face doesn’t seem to match it; after a moment or two he opens his mouth again as though he’s about to say something else, but then he shakes his head and reaches in his pocket for the keys to his truck. “I’ll see you in two days.”
“Call if you need to,” Greg tells him, and after receiving another weak smile in response he watches Nick open the driver’s side door of his truck. He watches it leave the parking lot until the taillights are no longer visible, and then he gets into the driver’s seat of his car – and as he makes his way home, he can’t get that haunted expression on Nick’s face out of his mind.
There had been no call, and by the time they’d met up at work two days later it was all over.
“You want to come by and have dinner tonight?”
“That’d be good,” Greg replies, turning with his car keys clutched in one hand. They haven’t had time to do more than nod in passing during the previous eight hours, because the shift was even more of a bitch than usual; when he looks at Nick now, he sees that even though the older man’s smiling there are dark shadows beneath his eyes – and as Nick raises one hand to put his sunglasses on, his sleeve falls back to reveal that the watch is gone.
“Nick -?”
“Eight o’clock sound okay?” Nick asks, every muscle in his face pulled taut – a mute signal that Greg might sense what’s happened but he’d better not ask about it, and Greg picks up on this signal immediately; he hears himself tell Nick yes, eight o’clock sounds good, and before he can say anything else Nick has climbed into his truck. Minutes later he’s in his own car heading out of the parking lot, CD player cranked up as high as it will go; and as he makes his way home, guilt twists sickeningly in the pit of his stomach…because this is his friend, he shouldn’t feel happy about what he’s just found out – but he does, and he can’t figure out why.
The work involved in dinner at Nick’s apartment had been pretty evenly split that night, the same way it had always been; Nick would cook while Greg did the dishes afterwards, a decision that had been mutually reached after Greg’s attempts at helping with the food had set off the smoke alarm three weeks in a row.
The meal itself would normally have been accompanied by the banter the two of them had become so used to exchanging since they’d become friends, but not this evening. Every so often one or other of them had begun to speak and then stopped, as though they’d thought better of it - until eventually, Nick had pushed his plate away and looked across the table.
“Well, we’re not seeing each other any longer,” and the simplicity of the words brings that guilt to the forefront of Greg’s mind again; he is speechless for some time as he tries to figure out what he’s supposed to say, and before he’s figured it out Nick speaks again.
“You remember what I told you the night I met him? No, of course you don’t, it was months ago…”
“He’s actually not that bad,” Greg says before he can stop himself. “Right?”
“Yeah,” Nick says, looking at Greg in mild surprise before staring down at his hands. “I thought it would change, but it never did.”
“Change?”
“I wanted to look at him and feel it here,” Nick answers quietly, bringing a hand up to rest over his heart for a second or two. “I kept hoping I would, it just never happened,” and he sighs gently. “He was funny, he was good to me, it just wasn’t enough.”
“He just made partner, he had a huge condo and a Hummer with a custom paint job – wasn’t that enough?” Greg asks, a smile appearing on his lips even though he’s never felt less like smiling in his life - and he knows he ought to stop, but he can’t make himself do it. “I’d have thought you could make it be,” and he feels something swelling in his throat as he continues. “There is no love at first sight, Nick, people aren’t meant to walk off into the sunset…”
“Why don’t you tell me what you really think?” Nick says, and there’s an undercurrent in the words that Greg picks up on - unlike the night they met - making something jolt in his gut before vanishing as quickly as it appeared. “I didn’t have you down as the jealous type,” he continues, and that’s when Greg pushes his chair back; crossing the room, he turns on the faucet and starts shoving dishes and cutlery into the sink, and when he begins speaking he doesn’t turn round.
“I had this friend when I lived out in California,” he says, and there’s a tightness in the back of his throat, because no matter how many years might have passed the memory hurts just as much now as it ever did. “His name was Eddie, he was my best friend right from the fifth grade, and even when I told him I was gay it didn’t freak him out,” and he turns off the faucet before resting his hands on the edge of the sink and staring at the wall. “He became a cop, it was all he’d ever wanted to do ever since I’d known him, but we still got together as much as we could – and then he met this girl.”
He breaks off then, swallowing hard as he regains his composure, and eventually he continues speaking while his hands grip the edge of the sink so tightly his knuckles turn white. “Nothing really changed until she saw me coming out of a club one night with some guy, and then she said…”
“Greg -”
“No, Nick, you wanted to know what my problem was, you listen,” Greg says, squeezing his eyes shut. “She told him she didn’t want him hanging around with a fag, and he said she was just going to have to deal with it. I told him maybe I should back off for a bit, and he told me no, because it wasn’t like I was ever going to convert him,” and there’s another silence that lasts far too long. “He laughed it off, said she’d come round in the end, and we went to a ballgame that night just like we planned – it was three or four days after that before I saw him again, we were meeting up for lunch, and he had a black eye.”
He lowers his head, sucks in another breath and tries to forget the images that have never really left his mind despite countless attempts to suppress them. “He told me it happened at work, but I knew she’d done it – I kept after him and he admitted it, he could never hide anything from me for very long,” he continues, his voice unconsciously changing in pitch to mimic that of his best friend. “You don’t understand, she’s had a hard life, she’s sorry,” and he blinks rapidly, because damn it Nick is not going to see him cry.
“We always met up for dinner on a Saturday night when we weren’t working, and he said maybe we’d better forget it that week – so I said fine, we’ll do it next Saturday, and every week there was another reason why it didn’t happen. He’d call me on the phone, but he always sounded like he had to be somewhere else in five minutes – six months after they started dating she was pregnant, and then I didn’t hear from him for…well, I don’t know how long it was, but he finally called me the day after my birthday and asked if he could come by, and he just looked so tired – no, let me finish, dammit!” and he manages to raise one hand for silence before Nick has done anything more than say his name again.
“He looked so tired, like she’d sucked everything out of him, and he sat in my living room and cried – said he’d wanted to tell me about what was going on for months, but he’d been too ashamed. It wasn’t just me he cut off, he wasn’t going out with the guys from work any longer either, because the last time he went bowling with them and stayed out past midnight she bent one of his fingers back so far she broke it – he was taller then me, Nick, he was built like a freaking football player, and he let it go on because he loved her and every time something happened she’d tell him it was the last time. I never heard him apologise to me before, but he did that night, he told me he was sorry for being such an asshole and I – I said he didn’t need to, I offered to pull out the couch and let him stay the night but he told me he wasn’t going to just leave her without an explanation -” He stares at the wall above the sink, feeling tears spilling down his cheeks but no longer caring, because this is the first time he’s ever let this out and his defences have come down too far for him to stop now.
“I called him in the morning and a detective answered the phone, she’d stabbed him and he’d died by the time the paramedics got there,” he says, his voice starting to crack as he forces himself to turn round. “And you know what I said? I said if that’s what caring about someone does to you, I don’t want it,” and he rubs the heel of one hand across his eyes before looking at Nick, who’s staring at him with his mouth half-open. “You wanted to know what my problem with relationships was? Well, now you do,” he says, and he moves to grab his jacket from the back of the chair.
“Greg, wait.”
“No,” he says, his self-control hanging by a thread. “Whatever it is, I can’t,” and he’s stumbled out of the apartment before Nick can do or say anything else. The elevator seems to take forever to arrive, and when he finally makes it outside the warm air against his face makes him feel like throwing up – but he leans against the lobby door and takes huge breaths until the sensation passes, and all he’s left with as he reaches for his cell to call a cab is the feeling that he’s completely alone.
He’d had the cab driver take him to the club he favoured on his ‘hunting’ nights, seeking solace in the music and the crush of bodies on the dance floor and the warmth of someone’s skin against his own – and he’d spent less than an hour there before ending up in someone’s apartment five blocks from the club. There’d been no name and phone number this time, merely the wordless handing over of a condom – because no matter how much the night’s events might have blinded him, he hadn’t become reckless - and by the time he was in another cab heading home, hollow and aching despite the physical release he’d achieved, he hadn’t been able to remember his partner’s face.
Back at his apartment, the light on his answering machine had been blinking, and when he’d taken his cell from his pocket he’d found half a dozen missed calls – all from the same number. He’d sat on the edge of his bed, wanting so badly to return the call, but something had prevented him – a feeling he couldn’t explain, the same thing that had made him turn away the night he’d sat in that bar and seen Nick throw back his head and laugh at something Ethan had said.
He’d arrived at the lab the following day with a headache and shadows under his eyes, because he hadn’t managed to get to sleep until an hour and a half before his alarm had gone off; Grissom had raised a brow when they’d met in the corridor outside the DNA lab, but he’d evidently been too preoccupied to say anything – something for which Greg had been more than a little grateful as he set to work on the customary backlog of cases vying for his attention…
“Greg?” A familiar voice, making something pull inside his chest, and it’s some time before he looks up from his microscope; when he does, Nick’s leaning in the doorway with his thumbs hooked in his belt loops and concern in his dark eyes. “I tried -” and Nick breaks off, as though what he started to say wasn’t what he meant. “Did you get any sleep?”
“Some,” Greg tells him, managing to keep his voice even and smile as he speaks – not knowing why it’s so important to do this now, just knowing it is. “Went out, got back late, you know me.”
“I’m sorry,” Nick continues then, taking a handful of steps that bring him within touching distance. “For making you dig that up last night, I -” and Greg holds up a hand to silence him; whatever was pulling in his chest hurts now, making it hard for him to breathe, and it takes him what seems forever to swallow it down and speak.
“Forget it,” he says eventually, his smile pulling every muscle taut. “Water under the bridge, man, you weren’t to know.”
“Nick!” a voice calls from the hall. “I have something on one of those tapes you need to hear…”
“Be right there!” Nick calls back over his shoulder, and then he turns back towards Greg. “Are you okay?” he asks, the tone of the words low and uncertain.
“I’m okay,” Greg replies, unable to define the expression in his friend’s eyes or to avert his gaze from it. “Just tired, that’s all.”
“You want to do something after work?” Nick asks. “Coffee or something? I think we ought to talk about this.”
“Yeah,” Greg tells him, the tightness inside him loosening a little but not nearly enough, and he sees something in Nick’s eyes that looks a lot like relief. “Go see what Archie wants,” and he watches Nick’s retreating back for a long time before turning back to his work; three cases to handle, he’s got to stay sharp…
…and by the end of the afternoon, everything had changed.
He lies on his side, dimly aware of smoke and muffled voices talking about vitals and partial to full-thickness burns; then he’s carried outside where the light’s too bright, making him squeeze his eyes shut, and is that a helicopter up there?
What the hell just happened?
He needs to have someone find Nick, he needs them to tell Nick he won’t be meeting him for coffee, but he can’t make his lips move before he’s lifted up into the ambulance; it seems easier to keep his eyes closed, so he does that, and as the ambulance starts moving he lets everything slip away.
Concludes soon…
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