Fic: Dig the Hole Wide and Deep (5/?)
Oct. 16th, 2007 06:48 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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nickngregTitle: Dig the Hole Wide and Deep
Rating: NC-17 for language and adult content
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Warnings: Angst. Adult dialog.
Summary: Greg’s view of their 5 months.
Spoilers: None
A/N: This is a sequel to ‘Putting Down Roots’ which you can find
here
Previous parts of this story can be found here
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's Five Stages of Grief
denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Greg and Nick slammed their respective doors on Thursday at 3.17 pm. So today, Greg had been stuck in the outer rim of Hell for 8 days, 8 hours and 21 minutes. He was too miserable to even try to compute the seconds. He knew Nick was all ready at work (he always had to be everywhere early) and he was going to their…no, he was going over to Nick’s place to pick up his belongings.
He had tried to apologize, to assure Nick that he would scrub and clean every spare moment he had and that he would never ever defile his house again but Nick would not even talk to him. Nick was polite to a fault at work; considerate, never refused to work a case with him and always treated him like a new, CSI 1 he was training. There were times when Greg thought just for a brief second that he was crazy. Maybe he had dreamed the whole last five months because he wanted Nick so badly. This man was a stranger. There had never been even once let alone the hundreds of memories he had of their bodies straining together. He had never taken Nick’s dick in his mouth and licked and sucked it until Nick had come down his throat with a strangled scream of desire and satisfaction. He had never seen Nick’s face above his, coming closer and closer until his mouth claimed his and he sucked his tongue into his mouth and let Greg’s tongue fuck his mouth the way his cock was fucking Greg’s ass. Greg was living in a strange off-kilter world called ‘Denial’ created and occupied by him and Nicholas Stokes. They were the only inhabitants and Greg wanted out of that world before it consumed him and left him a drooling idiot.
The only way out was to acknowledge the end and try to figure out how he was supposed to live with the ugly, bloody hole in his chest where his heart used to be. Step one was to remove every trace of himself from Nick’s house.
Greg pulled into Nick’s driveway and used his key fob to open the garage door. He had to remember to leave that on the kitchen table when he got his stuff. As the door opened, he saw the immaculate garage. Nick’s garage would put most people’s kitchens to shame. Every tool was either in its labeled drawer, or lying on its properly marked shelf or hanging on the peg boards where each screw-driver and wrench, was carefully outlined in black marker. The only items out of place were some boxes and a couple of garbage sacks on one side.
Greg got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He walked over and opened one of the bags and saw his clothes. He looked in one of the boxes and it was full of his personal care products. He wondered if he could even get in the house but was surprised to find the back door was unlocked. He swallowed his tears and hopes and walked into the place he had not only called home but felt deep in his soul was his home and the one place on this planet where he was meant to be.
The house smelled of Orange Glo and bleach and laundry detergent. There was not a single item out of place in the kitchen. He opened the dishwasher; it was empty. Nothing in the sink, not even a spoon. Greg thought of his own kitchen back at the apartment and for one, brief moment compared the two places. He really came out on the losing end on that one.
He walked on into the living room. Again, absolutely nothing out of place. No magazines or papers on the coffee table. No messages on the message board above the phone, not even a pencil lying out. He went on through to the master suite; it was the same. He opened the two drawers that had been his since he moved in with Nick. The drawers now held Nick’s collection of football jerseys and workout/running clothes. Of course they were laundered and folded so perfectly there would be no wrinkles when he pulled one out. He opened the closet. It was perfectly ordered; short sleeve shirts arranged by color followed by long sleeve shirts arranged by color followed by casual slacks and then dress and so on.
There was not one single item anywhere in the closet or bedroom to suggest that Greg Sanders ever existed let alone lived with and loved the occupant of that space. The bathroom was the same. In that moment, every single hope, no matter how faint or remote died. Greg realized that Nick had completely wiped him out of his life and based on the way he treated him at work, his memory.
Greg headed for home. That wasn’t the word for 4 walls that enclosed a space where he ate, slept and changed clothes. He’d had a home. He knew a home was a place where there were arms to hold you close and lips to kiss away your cares and someone to make you laugh and share cold soda’s and hot coffee with. He didn’t have that anymore. He pulled the car over into a convenient grocery store parking lot, put his head down on the steering wheel and gave into the sobs that had been choking him for longer than he wanted to remember.
Greg had no idea how long he’d been sitting there in his car. It was a while. His eyes were grainy and sore from the tears he’d shed. He had snot pouring out of his nose. He looked around his car but while he could find all sorts of sacks from various fast food places, none of them had a napkin left, used or otherwise. He did find a stale, warm bottle of water under the passenger seat. He took a few sips and kept on looking. Finally he reached into the back seat, opened one of the garbage bags (now wasn’t that appropriate. Nick had put his stuff in garbage bags sort of like he had discarded Greg) and pulled out a dirty t-shirt. He blew his nose violently until he’d cleared all the gunk out and then used another part of the t-shirt to wipe his face off. He found one last relatively clean part and poured water on the t-shirt and wiped his face again. When he got through, he sat up and pulled the rear view mirror down to look at himself. He was horrified to see the sad, lost face staring back at him. How had he let himself get into this condition?
Greg flipped the mirror back into position, started the car and as he pulled out of the parking lot and headed for his apartment, he swore to himself he would never allow a breakdown like this to happen to him again.
Greg lugged the last of the boxes and bags up to his place. He dumped the bags of clothes out on the floor in a corner of his bedroom and quickly picked out underwear, towels and sheets. He grabbed his detergent, fabric softener, cell phone and his Game Boy and headed for the laundry room.
He got two of the machines chugging away and sat down to compose himself and play some games but his usual coping methods couldn’t handle the black hole his mind had become. He knew, as a scientist, he needed to understand what had happened; how things had gone so bad so fast.
They had only been together five months but they had been friends and co-workers for seven years. They should have had all the little stuff that sidetracks most couples out of the way. They enjoyed each other in and out of bed. The sex had been, well, Greg couldn’t quite describe the emotions he had when Nick made love to him. Even those odd moments when Nick had been rough with him were over the top because afterward, Nick seemed to be horrified at what he had done and he would clean Greg and put Neosporin on the bite marks, especially where he had broken the skin and caused the blood to flow. He would carefully insert medicated ointment to care for the tears in his rectum and he would insist that they not have anal sex until Greg was completely healed. Greg was not a masochist by any means but those moments when Nick lavished such tender care on him were worth whatever pain he might have experienced before. And to be honest, most of the time he was in such a state of arousal he didn’t even know how rough Nick was until after it was over and he was coming down from his endorphin high.
So, did it all come down to the house? Was that what had ruined a perfect relationship and if that really was the problem, why didn’t Nick just tell him, “Hey, Greg I love you but I can’t live with someone as slobby as you? Clean up your act or we are going to have to rethink this.” God knows if Nick had ever really talked to him, he would have moved heaven and earth to make him happy. Cleaning the house wasn’t that big a deal!
“Oh yeah, then why didn’t you do it? You knew that last time it was bugging him. Why did you go out with Rob and the guys when you had promised the man you claim you love more than anything that you would clean up his home?” Greg usually enjoyed arguing with himself; he was such good company but this time, it was painful and he did not want to start crying again in public. But the ache in his gut told him, he was onto something. No matter how much it hurt, he had to keep going.
“OK, why did you deliberately provoke him on so many occasions? You knew going into the affair he was house proud. Good God as many hours as you worked on that house with him, you knew he was a perfectionist and everything had to be perfect.”
“Yeah, I knew that but I figured once we got together, he would have something else to concentrate on (ME) and would stop fixating on the house.”
“Oh good lord Greg, that’s so gay! You sound just like a female. You get the guy and immediately expect him to change. Did you ever tell him that he was coming across as OCD about the house?”
“Frankly I was more interested in using my mouth for other things than talking about the damn house.”
“So, in other words, you and Nick were working on a long term relationship you both supposedly wanted and you pretty much just thought about the sex, which according to you, worked from the beginning. Do I have it straight?”
Greg sat up straight. That was true. It was so true. He felt like an idiot. He grabbed his cell phone, checked the time real quick and then dialed Bobby Dawson.
“Bobby, its Greg. Do you have a few minutes to answer some questions for me? No it’s not about a case. It’s about basic rules for gay couples. You do. Oh not right now. WHEN? Sure I can meet you for breakfast. It’s about 6.30am right now. I’ll see you at the RoadHouse Eats at 8.15am. Thanks Again!”
Greg had rushed back up to his apartment to grab a notepad and pencils and went back down to baby sit his laundry while he thought about what he wanted to ask Bobby. By the time his stuff was washed and dried and he got it back up to his place and literally ran through the shower and changed, he was just barely late for breakfast. He had almost 3 pages of questions.
He skidded into the diner and by dodging around a few slow customers, dropped into the chair across from Bobby only 5 minutes late. Bobby just grinned at him and told him he’d already ordered coffee for him. The waitress came back with their coffee and menus. Greg had not eaten much of anything for the last 8 days but suddenly he was starving. He was ready to lick the stains on the menus. He ordered blueberry pancakes, a side of sausage and another of bacon and some hash browns.
Bobby raised his eyebrow’s, shook his head and grinned at the waitress as he gave his somewhat more restrained order for eggs over easy, ham and toast with tomato juice. Greg had felt his stomach rumble softly when he said ‘blue’ and by the time Bobbie’s order was taken, his stomach was in a full rolling growl. The waitress grinned at him and told him she’d put a rush on his order before he tried to eat the napkin holder.
In order to forget (and ignore) his obnoxious stomach, Greg got his pad and pencils out and got ready to be enlightened.
Ninety minutes later, his fingers were cramped from taking copious notes, his head was spinning and he realized he and Nick had been beyond stupid when they started together. Bobby had tried to make him feel better by telling him that most guys never gave a second thought to the things they had been talking about because most gay’s just sort of fell into a long-time thing. It was very rare that ‘love at first sight’ occurred in the gay community. Greg told him he appreciated him trying to make him feel better but he and Nick had known from the beginning that they wanted a long-term thing. Yeah, a lot of the items on his list would have not been appropriate for them at that time; like wills for example or combining bank accounts or changing names on deeds but things like setting each other up as primary medical notification, deciding what bills were going to be split, what did Nick expect from Greg regarding living expenses and especially; Bobby put a lot of emphasis on ‘ESPECIALLY’ domestic duties or as Bobby put it…..Who does what and when?
Bobby asked Greg if he had ever paid Nick anything towards food or utilities and when he said no, Bobby just shook his head and said, “Jesus Greg, you mean you’ve been free-loading off Nick for almost 5 months and haven’t even offered to split an electric bill? You do realize I’m your friend and even to me that comes across as pretty selfish on your part.”
Greg’s angry response that he’d kept his own apartment and he was paying rent there really didn’t fly with Bobby.
“Did you sleep there, eat there, do your laundry there, play your video games, listen to CD’s, watch TV?” Greg sheepishly shook his head no, he’d done all that at Nick’s for the last glorious 5 months. “Then you’ve been free-loading off Nick and if the two of you are having problems, I’ll bet that’s at the top of the list.”
Greg shrugged and said, no, that wasn’t at the top of the list; Nick’s God Damned House was at the top of the list. Bobby glared at his friend. He reached over and took the tablet out of Greg’s hands and told him to forget the damn list….start talking.
Greg knew Bobby wouldn’t judge either him or Nick and he wouldn’t pull any punches. He was talking to the one person in the world who would tell him the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He talked. And talked. And talked. At one point Bobby raised his hands and made a time out. He had to call Steve, his partner. Greg said he’d go to the john while he did that. When he got back, there were two glasses of milk and some cinnamon rolls sitting at their table and his waitress told him, his friend said to drink some milk, lay off any more coffee and he’d be right back.
Bobby came back, told Greg Steve said for him to stay there until he bled him dry and ordered him to drink some milk and continue. Two hours later, Greg was hoarse and Bobby was almost speechless. Greg was also beginning to realize some cold, hard facts; facts he didn’t want to realize.
Bobby had been silent for a good five minutes and to some one like Greg that was unbearable. He started twice to say something but Bobby just put his hand up and shook his head. Greg got the message; shut up, I’m thinking.
At long last, he cleared his throat and started talking himself. He told Greg he had no intention of telling him what to do. Every set of problems was unique to the person or persons having the problems. He wanted to clarify some things Greg had said AND he wanted to tell Greg what had stood out for him during his brain core dump.
First, he asked why no one at work had a clue that he and Nick were a couple. Greg said Nick didn’t want anyone to know. Bobby asked him what he, Greg, had thought about that. Greg replied he had no problem with people knowing, Hell he wanted to take out ads and hire planes to fly overhead with banners. The idea that someone like Nick Stokes was in love with him should have been shouted from the top of every casino in town.
Then Bobby asked how he knew Nick loved him. That took another 30 minutes of arguing and at the end of it, a completely defeated Greg had to admit; Nick had never said the words. Not once! He did stress that Nick had told him that very first night that he was not interested in a one-night quickie. He wanted long-term. Bobby nodded thoughtfully.
“And during this 5 month period, according to your own words, you had 2 drawers in the chest in his bedroom, right? What about your hanging clothes?” Greg said he didn’t keep too many hanging clothes at Nick’s, just one change of good stuff in case they wanted to go out and one set for work if he got called in. “And this was the way things went for the whole five months you were together?” Yes.
“What about books, DVD’s, CD’s? Where did you keep those?”
Well, there were no CD’s; Nick couldn’t stand his music and if he wanted to watch a DVD that Nick didn’t have, he brought it from the apartment and took it back after. Books he could put on a shelf in the family room if his name was not on the title plate.
“You said you found your stuff in the garage. Why did you go in through the garage? Did you think Nick changed the security alarm?”
No, he’d never had a key to the house. He had a little thing Nick called a key-fob. It opened the garage door, he pulled his car into the garage and then went into the house through the back door.
Bobby dropped his head in his hands and started shaking it slowly. “Good Sweet Jesus, Sanders. You’re pathetic, you know it? What the hell happened to the smart, cocky kid who used to make a presentation while wearing a Vegas show girls head dress? Did you two fuck so much your brains turned to shit and dribbled out your ass? Good God Almighty. I don’t know who I’m maddest at right now; you or Stokes. I’ll tell you one thing. You two deserve each other. He’s a self-righteous, judgmental, autocratic prick and you’re a dumb, noodle-headed wimp.”
Greg’s mouth was hanging open. He had never seen Bobby Dawson this angry in the entire time he’d known him. Nor had he ever heard him say anything close to the stuff he’d just thrown out at him. Greg tried to defend himself but he was back where he was the afternoon Nick had yelled at him and told him to keep his hands off him. The rules had changed and no one had told him.
He asked Bobby why he was so mad. Bobby gave him a completely astounded look and said, “ You freaking idiot, someone has to be mad and you obviously haven’t got a brain cell left that knows that. This man, I can’t even begin to call him Nick; he’s not the Nick Stokes I’ve worked with for the last seven years.”
Greg interrupted him quickly, “I swear to you Bobby, I didn’t lie about anything and I tried to remember everything that happened and tell it honestly.”
“I’m not saying you lied Greg. I’m saying this guy has a split personality. He told you he wanted a long term relationship, you and he had a passionate night of love-making, in theory, you moved in right then and you’ve been in his house and in his bed ever since…well up to the breakup 8 days ago. Is that right?”
Greg nodded, Yeah that was it in a nutshell.
“In all that time, he never told nor did he allow you to tell one single person you were together.” Greg nodded again.
“While the two of your are working on this ‘long term’ relationship, you had 2 drawers in the chest in the bedroom, you were only allowed to keep 2 changes of clothes at his house, you had to enter what was by all rights your home through the back door.” Greg had cringed when he literally could see the ‘air quotes’ around the ‘long term’ by he nodded again.
“So let me say it again. He’s a self-righteous, judgmental, autocratic prick and you’re a dumb, noodle-headed wimp.”
Rating: NC-17 for language and adult content
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Warnings: Angst. Adult dialog.
Summary: Greg’s view of their 5 months.
Spoilers: None
A/N: This is a sequel to ‘Putting Down Roots’ which you can find
here
Previous parts of this story can be found here
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's Five Stages of Grief
denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Greg and Nick slammed their respective doors on Thursday at 3.17 pm. So today, Greg had been stuck in the outer rim of Hell for 8 days, 8 hours and 21 minutes. He was too miserable to even try to compute the seconds. He knew Nick was all ready at work (he always had to be everywhere early) and he was going to their…no, he was going over to Nick’s place to pick up his belongings.
He had tried to apologize, to assure Nick that he would scrub and clean every spare moment he had and that he would never ever defile his house again but Nick would not even talk to him. Nick was polite to a fault at work; considerate, never refused to work a case with him and always treated him like a new, CSI 1 he was training. There were times when Greg thought just for a brief second that he was crazy. Maybe he had dreamed the whole last five months because he wanted Nick so badly. This man was a stranger. There had never been even once let alone the hundreds of memories he had of their bodies straining together. He had never taken Nick’s dick in his mouth and licked and sucked it until Nick had come down his throat with a strangled scream of desire and satisfaction. He had never seen Nick’s face above his, coming closer and closer until his mouth claimed his and he sucked his tongue into his mouth and let Greg’s tongue fuck his mouth the way his cock was fucking Greg’s ass. Greg was living in a strange off-kilter world called ‘Denial’ created and occupied by him and Nicholas Stokes. They were the only inhabitants and Greg wanted out of that world before it consumed him and left him a drooling idiot.
The only way out was to acknowledge the end and try to figure out how he was supposed to live with the ugly, bloody hole in his chest where his heart used to be. Step one was to remove every trace of himself from Nick’s house.
Greg pulled into Nick’s driveway and used his key fob to open the garage door. He had to remember to leave that on the kitchen table when he got his stuff. As the door opened, he saw the immaculate garage. Nick’s garage would put most people’s kitchens to shame. Every tool was either in its labeled drawer, or lying on its properly marked shelf or hanging on the peg boards where each screw-driver and wrench, was carefully outlined in black marker. The only items out of place were some boxes and a couple of garbage sacks on one side.
Greg got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He walked over and opened one of the bags and saw his clothes. He looked in one of the boxes and it was full of his personal care products. He wondered if he could even get in the house but was surprised to find the back door was unlocked. He swallowed his tears and hopes and walked into the place he had not only called home but felt deep in his soul was his home and the one place on this planet where he was meant to be.
The house smelled of Orange Glo and bleach and laundry detergent. There was not a single item out of place in the kitchen. He opened the dishwasher; it was empty. Nothing in the sink, not even a spoon. Greg thought of his own kitchen back at the apartment and for one, brief moment compared the two places. He really came out on the losing end on that one.
He walked on into the living room. Again, absolutely nothing out of place. No magazines or papers on the coffee table. No messages on the message board above the phone, not even a pencil lying out. He went on through to the master suite; it was the same. He opened the two drawers that had been his since he moved in with Nick. The drawers now held Nick’s collection of football jerseys and workout/running clothes. Of course they were laundered and folded so perfectly there would be no wrinkles when he pulled one out. He opened the closet. It was perfectly ordered; short sleeve shirts arranged by color followed by long sleeve shirts arranged by color followed by casual slacks and then dress and so on.
There was not one single item anywhere in the closet or bedroom to suggest that Greg Sanders ever existed let alone lived with and loved the occupant of that space. The bathroom was the same. In that moment, every single hope, no matter how faint or remote died. Greg realized that Nick had completely wiped him out of his life and based on the way he treated him at work, his memory.
Greg headed for home. That wasn’t the word for 4 walls that enclosed a space where he ate, slept and changed clothes. He’d had a home. He knew a home was a place where there were arms to hold you close and lips to kiss away your cares and someone to make you laugh and share cold soda’s and hot coffee with. He didn’t have that anymore. He pulled the car over into a convenient grocery store parking lot, put his head down on the steering wheel and gave into the sobs that had been choking him for longer than he wanted to remember.
Greg had no idea how long he’d been sitting there in his car. It was a while. His eyes were grainy and sore from the tears he’d shed. He had snot pouring out of his nose. He looked around his car but while he could find all sorts of sacks from various fast food places, none of them had a napkin left, used or otherwise. He did find a stale, warm bottle of water under the passenger seat. He took a few sips and kept on looking. Finally he reached into the back seat, opened one of the garbage bags (now wasn’t that appropriate. Nick had put his stuff in garbage bags sort of like he had discarded Greg) and pulled out a dirty t-shirt. He blew his nose violently until he’d cleared all the gunk out and then used another part of the t-shirt to wipe his face off. He found one last relatively clean part and poured water on the t-shirt and wiped his face again. When he got through, he sat up and pulled the rear view mirror down to look at himself. He was horrified to see the sad, lost face staring back at him. How had he let himself get into this condition?
Greg flipped the mirror back into position, started the car and as he pulled out of the parking lot and headed for his apartment, he swore to himself he would never allow a breakdown like this to happen to him again.
Greg lugged the last of the boxes and bags up to his place. He dumped the bags of clothes out on the floor in a corner of his bedroom and quickly picked out underwear, towels and sheets. He grabbed his detergent, fabric softener, cell phone and his Game Boy and headed for the laundry room.
He got two of the machines chugging away and sat down to compose himself and play some games but his usual coping methods couldn’t handle the black hole his mind had become. He knew, as a scientist, he needed to understand what had happened; how things had gone so bad so fast.
They had only been together five months but they had been friends and co-workers for seven years. They should have had all the little stuff that sidetracks most couples out of the way. They enjoyed each other in and out of bed. The sex had been, well, Greg couldn’t quite describe the emotions he had when Nick made love to him. Even those odd moments when Nick had been rough with him were over the top because afterward, Nick seemed to be horrified at what he had done and he would clean Greg and put Neosporin on the bite marks, especially where he had broken the skin and caused the blood to flow. He would carefully insert medicated ointment to care for the tears in his rectum and he would insist that they not have anal sex until Greg was completely healed. Greg was not a masochist by any means but those moments when Nick lavished such tender care on him were worth whatever pain he might have experienced before. And to be honest, most of the time he was in such a state of arousal he didn’t even know how rough Nick was until after it was over and he was coming down from his endorphin high.
So, did it all come down to the house? Was that what had ruined a perfect relationship and if that really was the problem, why didn’t Nick just tell him, “Hey, Greg I love you but I can’t live with someone as slobby as you? Clean up your act or we are going to have to rethink this.” God knows if Nick had ever really talked to him, he would have moved heaven and earth to make him happy. Cleaning the house wasn’t that big a deal!
“Oh yeah, then why didn’t you do it? You knew that last time it was bugging him. Why did you go out with Rob and the guys when you had promised the man you claim you love more than anything that you would clean up his home?” Greg usually enjoyed arguing with himself; he was such good company but this time, it was painful and he did not want to start crying again in public. But the ache in his gut told him, he was onto something. No matter how much it hurt, he had to keep going.
“OK, why did you deliberately provoke him on so many occasions? You knew going into the affair he was house proud. Good God as many hours as you worked on that house with him, you knew he was a perfectionist and everything had to be perfect.”
“Yeah, I knew that but I figured once we got together, he would have something else to concentrate on (ME) and would stop fixating on the house.”
“Oh good lord Greg, that’s so gay! You sound just like a female. You get the guy and immediately expect him to change. Did you ever tell him that he was coming across as OCD about the house?”
“Frankly I was more interested in using my mouth for other things than talking about the damn house.”
“So, in other words, you and Nick were working on a long term relationship you both supposedly wanted and you pretty much just thought about the sex, which according to you, worked from the beginning. Do I have it straight?”
Greg sat up straight. That was true. It was so true. He felt like an idiot. He grabbed his cell phone, checked the time real quick and then dialed Bobby Dawson.
“Bobby, its Greg. Do you have a few minutes to answer some questions for me? No it’s not about a case. It’s about basic rules for gay couples. You do. Oh not right now. WHEN? Sure I can meet you for breakfast. It’s about 6.30am right now. I’ll see you at the RoadHouse Eats at 8.15am. Thanks Again!”
Greg had rushed back up to his apartment to grab a notepad and pencils and went back down to baby sit his laundry while he thought about what he wanted to ask Bobby. By the time his stuff was washed and dried and he got it back up to his place and literally ran through the shower and changed, he was just barely late for breakfast. He had almost 3 pages of questions.
He skidded into the diner and by dodging around a few slow customers, dropped into the chair across from Bobby only 5 minutes late. Bobby just grinned at him and told him he’d already ordered coffee for him. The waitress came back with their coffee and menus. Greg had not eaten much of anything for the last 8 days but suddenly he was starving. He was ready to lick the stains on the menus. He ordered blueberry pancakes, a side of sausage and another of bacon and some hash browns.
Bobby raised his eyebrow’s, shook his head and grinned at the waitress as he gave his somewhat more restrained order for eggs over easy, ham and toast with tomato juice. Greg had felt his stomach rumble softly when he said ‘blue’ and by the time Bobbie’s order was taken, his stomach was in a full rolling growl. The waitress grinned at him and told him she’d put a rush on his order before he tried to eat the napkin holder.
In order to forget (and ignore) his obnoxious stomach, Greg got his pad and pencils out and got ready to be enlightened.
Ninety minutes later, his fingers were cramped from taking copious notes, his head was spinning and he realized he and Nick had been beyond stupid when they started together. Bobby had tried to make him feel better by telling him that most guys never gave a second thought to the things they had been talking about because most gay’s just sort of fell into a long-time thing. It was very rare that ‘love at first sight’ occurred in the gay community. Greg told him he appreciated him trying to make him feel better but he and Nick had known from the beginning that they wanted a long-term thing. Yeah, a lot of the items on his list would have not been appropriate for them at that time; like wills for example or combining bank accounts or changing names on deeds but things like setting each other up as primary medical notification, deciding what bills were going to be split, what did Nick expect from Greg regarding living expenses and especially; Bobby put a lot of emphasis on ‘ESPECIALLY’ domestic duties or as Bobby put it…..Who does what and when?
Bobby asked Greg if he had ever paid Nick anything towards food or utilities and when he said no, Bobby just shook his head and said, “Jesus Greg, you mean you’ve been free-loading off Nick for almost 5 months and haven’t even offered to split an electric bill? You do realize I’m your friend and even to me that comes across as pretty selfish on your part.”
Greg’s angry response that he’d kept his own apartment and he was paying rent there really didn’t fly with Bobby.
“Did you sleep there, eat there, do your laundry there, play your video games, listen to CD’s, watch TV?” Greg sheepishly shook his head no, he’d done all that at Nick’s for the last glorious 5 months. “Then you’ve been free-loading off Nick and if the two of you are having problems, I’ll bet that’s at the top of the list.”
Greg shrugged and said, no, that wasn’t at the top of the list; Nick’s God Damned House was at the top of the list. Bobby glared at his friend. He reached over and took the tablet out of Greg’s hands and told him to forget the damn list….start talking.
Greg knew Bobby wouldn’t judge either him or Nick and he wouldn’t pull any punches. He was talking to the one person in the world who would tell him the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He talked. And talked. And talked. At one point Bobby raised his hands and made a time out. He had to call Steve, his partner. Greg said he’d go to the john while he did that. When he got back, there were two glasses of milk and some cinnamon rolls sitting at their table and his waitress told him, his friend said to drink some milk, lay off any more coffee and he’d be right back.
Bobby came back, told Greg Steve said for him to stay there until he bled him dry and ordered him to drink some milk and continue. Two hours later, Greg was hoarse and Bobby was almost speechless. Greg was also beginning to realize some cold, hard facts; facts he didn’t want to realize.
Bobby had been silent for a good five minutes and to some one like Greg that was unbearable. He started twice to say something but Bobby just put his hand up and shook his head. Greg got the message; shut up, I’m thinking.
At long last, he cleared his throat and started talking himself. He told Greg he had no intention of telling him what to do. Every set of problems was unique to the person or persons having the problems. He wanted to clarify some things Greg had said AND he wanted to tell Greg what had stood out for him during his brain core dump.
First, he asked why no one at work had a clue that he and Nick were a couple. Greg said Nick didn’t want anyone to know. Bobby asked him what he, Greg, had thought about that. Greg replied he had no problem with people knowing, Hell he wanted to take out ads and hire planes to fly overhead with banners. The idea that someone like Nick Stokes was in love with him should have been shouted from the top of every casino in town.
Then Bobby asked how he knew Nick loved him. That took another 30 minutes of arguing and at the end of it, a completely defeated Greg had to admit; Nick had never said the words. Not once! He did stress that Nick had told him that very first night that he was not interested in a one-night quickie. He wanted long-term. Bobby nodded thoughtfully.
“And during this 5 month period, according to your own words, you had 2 drawers in the chest in his bedroom, right? What about your hanging clothes?” Greg said he didn’t keep too many hanging clothes at Nick’s, just one change of good stuff in case they wanted to go out and one set for work if he got called in. “And this was the way things went for the whole five months you were together?” Yes.
“What about books, DVD’s, CD’s? Where did you keep those?”
Well, there were no CD’s; Nick couldn’t stand his music and if he wanted to watch a DVD that Nick didn’t have, he brought it from the apartment and took it back after. Books he could put on a shelf in the family room if his name was not on the title plate.
“You said you found your stuff in the garage. Why did you go in through the garage? Did you think Nick changed the security alarm?”
No, he’d never had a key to the house. He had a little thing Nick called a key-fob. It opened the garage door, he pulled his car into the garage and then went into the house through the back door.
Bobby dropped his head in his hands and started shaking it slowly. “Good Sweet Jesus, Sanders. You’re pathetic, you know it? What the hell happened to the smart, cocky kid who used to make a presentation while wearing a Vegas show girls head dress? Did you two fuck so much your brains turned to shit and dribbled out your ass? Good God Almighty. I don’t know who I’m maddest at right now; you or Stokes. I’ll tell you one thing. You two deserve each other. He’s a self-righteous, judgmental, autocratic prick and you’re a dumb, noodle-headed wimp.”
Greg’s mouth was hanging open. He had never seen Bobby Dawson this angry in the entire time he’d known him. Nor had he ever heard him say anything close to the stuff he’d just thrown out at him. Greg tried to defend himself but he was back where he was the afternoon Nick had yelled at him and told him to keep his hands off him. The rules had changed and no one had told him.
He asked Bobby why he was so mad. Bobby gave him a completely astounded look and said, “ You freaking idiot, someone has to be mad and you obviously haven’t got a brain cell left that knows that. This man, I can’t even begin to call him Nick; he’s not the Nick Stokes I’ve worked with for the last seven years.”
Greg interrupted him quickly, “I swear to you Bobby, I didn’t lie about anything and I tried to remember everything that happened and tell it honestly.”
“I’m not saying you lied Greg. I’m saying this guy has a split personality. He told you he wanted a long term relationship, you and he had a passionate night of love-making, in theory, you moved in right then and you’ve been in his house and in his bed ever since…well up to the breakup 8 days ago. Is that right?”
Greg nodded, Yeah that was it in a nutshell.
“In all that time, he never told nor did he allow you to tell one single person you were together.” Greg nodded again.
“While the two of your are working on this ‘long term’ relationship, you had 2 drawers in the chest in the bedroom, you were only allowed to keep 2 changes of clothes at his house, you had to enter what was by all rights your home through the back door.” Greg had cringed when he literally could see the ‘air quotes’ around the ‘long term’ by he nodded again.
“So let me say it again. He’s a self-righteous, judgmental, autocratic prick and you’re a dumb, noodle-headed wimp.”
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Date: 2007-10-17 12:04 am (UTC):(
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Date: 2007-10-17 01:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-17 01:22 am (UTC)I'm gonna be an ass and say altho George Eads is 40, Nick is 36.
OK
sorry
but I understand
Everyone needs a little angst in their life
It can't always be nice fluffy bunny shaped peeps.
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Date: 2007-10-17 09:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-17 01:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-17 01:38 pm (UTC)I like this fic A LOT! Can't wait to see what happens next!
Bobby's comment to Greg about being a dumb noodle-headed wimp has me giggling for a good long time this morning! *smooch* Thanks for adding to my already perfect morning! :D
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Date: 2007-10-17 05:53 pm (UTC)The Bobby Dawson character has always struck me as the type of person who would not hesitate for one second to knock your head off if you needed it, then make you go pick it up and put it back on BUT tear apart anyone else who lifted a finger against you. I think he takes care of his own and he considers all of his friends as 'his own'.
I originally planned on having Greg call Warrick for this chapter BUT after I had typed Bobby for the third time, I realized my sub-concious was a better writer than I was.
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Date: 2007-10-17 06:26 pm (UTC)I have a good friend like your Bobby. :)
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Date: 2007-10-17 08:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-17 09:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 03:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 11:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 10:03 pm (UTC)