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nickngregTitle: 5 things Greg feels guilty about- and one he doesn't.
Author: subobscura
Rating: R, probably. Language mostly, Greg has a very salty vocabulary. Teensy bit of sex. Recreational drug use. Lying, PTSD, depression. Still, I found this oddly uplifting.
Archive: Ask please. Just like to know where things end up.
A/N: Not betaed. If you would like to be a beta on a ~4-5k word story that is half written, lemme know. I don't have a beta in this comm, and find it very useful to have peeps who know the characters.
He was heating some agarose to make a gel to do some tricky old-school RFLP, and then Ecklie had come in ranting about cross-contamination in his rape-homicide (evidence which he hadn't even seen, much less processed), and then he was doing five things at once for the night shift backlog, and he's good, he knows he's good, but they can't seriously expect him to be the primary DNA tech and the overflow trace tech, and all around boy wonder without ever making a mistake? Can they? So he left the hotplate on and forgot about it, and ended up blowing himself through the lab wall and destroying critical evidence in fourteen cases and killing his beautiful million dollar state-of-the-art GC/MS. All of which is guilt inducing enough, but also? He never told Catherine in her investigation of the explosion. So she's always thought it was all her fault when he's at least halfway to blame. And that still doesn't stop him from being pissed at her sometimes, usually in the winter when it's dry and his scars get really itchy. And that makes him feel guilty, too.
2. So, okay. The day he was late for that first early rollout, when Warrick dressed him down? He'd gone over to a friend's house and had a special brownie. He hadn't really meant to, was so tired from the triple he'd just pulled and really had taken the first bite thinking it was just a regular brownie. But he knew after the first bite that it was laced with the mary jane, and he'd finished it anyway. The LVPD never seriously enforced the whole random drug testing thing, especially not with the CSI's and lab techs. So he was feeling pleasantly buzzed when Catherine's call came (and she was being so fucking cool about getting him field experience, there was no way he could say no), and yeah he drove to the wrong entrance, but before that he'd sat for half an hour and drove for another twenty minutes waiting for his buzz to die. So he showed up for his first early call not only looking like a flake, but kind of, sort of, high.
3. Needing to go home after processing half the evidence on that burn victim, the one who tried to kill herself by vodka-induced immolation? Not one of his proudest moments. Jesus fuck but he was angry at Grissom for making him go to the hospital and watch them cutting off her fingers. But still. He was a CSI now, and he had to be able to get his distance on these things. Car accidents, house fires, industrial and chemical burns; it wasn't like the woman was really a special case. Just the first in a long line of cases that he can't let make him go batshit insane. But all he could think of when he saw her was his own experience of three skin grafts, a month of pressure bandages, morphine that made him stupid but not sleepy (which, dear God, how he hates not being able to think clearly), and 78 stitches to close up the incision wounds from flying glass. Honestly? Not passing his proficiencies the first time around pales in comparison, because that was an honest mistake (And hello? Catherine sort of blew up the lab and then took money from Sam Braun. Duh he gets a second chance, when she's still around). But this, this is something he should be able to control, and he can't.
4. When Nick was missing for that interminable 24 hours that also just flew by, Greg was worse than useless. Great, he found a dead dog. The rest of the time, he was alternating between finding a corner of the lab that was empty and weeping with great huge sobs that made his chest hurt, and running to the nearest bathroom to hurl his guts out. And sometimes he was processing evidence that was totally fucking useless and he knew it, and he kept panicking looking at the clock because it was always five minutes later which was five minutes less air Nicky had and five minutes closer to him dying. And yeah, finally, he was there to save Nick, to spray the ants off of him and to help winch him out of that godforsaken hole. But that doesn't make up for the fact that he didn't really help find him in the first place. What's the use being a genius if it's a skill that never holds up when he really needs it to?
5. He can't think of a single nice thing to say about Demetrius James. The kid was a fucking loser punk asshole who went around with his friends murdering people for kicks. Greg had been out of options and didn't trust himself to win in a fight, even one-on-one, with a kid hopped up on God knows what. So he'd made a fairly rational (considering inside he was gibbering with panic) decision to use the only available weapon at hand. He'd ended up killing the kid, of course, because at no time ever does 160 pounds of flesh and blood match fairly against three tons of steel. He'd killed the kid, and he still can't think of anything nice to say about him. With the crushed hand and the head injuries and the internal bleeding, in a way, he sort of feels he's earned his penance. But what kind of person does it make him that he can find nothing positive about a human life that he'd willfully extinguished?
6. Right here, right now, he does not feel guilty about this. Tomorrow, all the rationalizations may come in to play, like that Nick and he work together, that they're both so incredibly fucked up the PD probably keeps shrinks on staff devoted solely to their case files, that Nick is the most obvious candidate to be his next supervisor. But tonight, when Nick had finally moved inside him, staring down at him with his dark eyes soft and mysterious like velvet, Greg felt peace steal over him like he hasn't felt in almost half a decade. Curled up together with the man he's been half in love with since forever, he can tell they're both thinking. But neither of them are tensing up, neither of them are making a move to leave. They're just kissing and stroking and learning each other's bodies the way that they already understand each other's heart and soul. They've each fought so long and hard just to be alive today, and no one understands the struggle it is just to get out of bed on a lot of days. But Nick knows, and Greg knows, and they don't have to talk about it. Yeah, he might feel guilty tomorrow. But then again, probably not. Greg thinks they'll be just fine.
Author: subobscura
Rating: R, probably. Language mostly, Greg has a very salty vocabulary. Teensy bit of sex. Recreational drug use. Lying, PTSD, depression. Still, I found this oddly uplifting.
Archive: Ask please. Just like to know where things end up.
A/N: Not betaed. If you would like to be a beta on a ~4-5k word story that is half written, lemme know. I don't have a beta in this comm, and find it very useful to have peeps who know the characters.
He was heating some agarose to make a gel to do some tricky old-school RFLP, and then Ecklie had come in ranting about cross-contamination in his rape-homicide (evidence which he hadn't even seen, much less processed), and then he was doing five things at once for the night shift backlog, and he's good, he knows he's good, but they can't seriously expect him to be the primary DNA tech and the overflow trace tech, and all around boy wonder without ever making a mistake? Can they? So he left the hotplate on and forgot about it, and ended up blowing himself through the lab wall and destroying critical evidence in fourteen cases and killing his beautiful million dollar state-of-the-art GC/MS. All of which is guilt inducing enough, but also? He never told Catherine in her investigation of the explosion. So she's always thought it was all her fault when he's at least halfway to blame. And that still doesn't stop him from being pissed at her sometimes, usually in the winter when it's dry and his scars get really itchy. And that makes him feel guilty, too.
2. So, okay. The day he was late for that first early rollout, when Warrick dressed him down? He'd gone over to a friend's house and had a special brownie. He hadn't really meant to, was so tired from the triple he'd just pulled and really had taken the first bite thinking it was just a regular brownie. But he knew after the first bite that it was laced with the mary jane, and he'd finished it anyway. The LVPD never seriously enforced the whole random drug testing thing, especially not with the CSI's and lab techs. So he was feeling pleasantly buzzed when Catherine's call came (and she was being so fucking cool about getting him field experience, there was no way he could say no), and yeah he drove to the wrong entrance, but before that he'd sat for half an hour and drove for another twenty minutes waiting for his buzz to die. So he showed up for his first early call not only looking like a flake, but kind of, sort of, high.
3. Needing to go home after processing half the evidence on that burn victim, the one who tried to kill herself by vodka-induced immolation? Not one of his proudest moments. Jesus fuck but he was angry at Grissom for making him go to the hospital and watch them cutting off her fingers. But still. He was a CSI now, and he had to be able to get his distance on these things. Car accidents, house fires, industrial and chemical burns; it wasn't like the woman was really a special case. Just the first in a long line of cases that he can't let make him go batshit insane. But all he could think of when he saw her was his own experience of three skin grafts, a month of pressure bandages, morphine that made him stupid but not sleepy (which, dear God, how he hates not being able to think clearly), and 78 stitches to close up the incision wounds from flying glass. Honestly? Not passing his proficiencies the first time around pales in comparison, because that was an honest mistake (And hello? Catherine sort of blew up the lab and then took money from Sam Braun. Duh he gets a second chance, when she's still around). But this, this is something he should be able to control, and he can't.
4. When Nick was missing for that interminable 24 hours that also just flew by, Greg was worse than useless. Great, he found a dead dog. The rest of the time, he was alternating between finding a corner of the lab that was empty and weeping with great huge sobs that made his chest hurt, and running to the nearest bathroom to hurl his guts out. And sometimes he was processing evidence that was totally fucking useless and he knew it, and he kept panicking looking at the clock because it was always five minutes later which was five minutes less air Nicky had and five minutes closer to him dying. And yeah, finally, he was there to save Nick, to spray the ants off of him and to help winch him out of that godforsaken hole. But that doesn't make up for the fact that he didn't really help find him in the first place. What's the use being a genius if it's a skill that never holds up when he really needs it to?
5. He can't think of a single nice thing to say about Demetrius James. The kid was a fucking loser punk asshole who went around with his friends murdering people for kicks. Greg had been out of options and didn't trust himself to win in a fight, even one-on-one, with a kid hopped up on God knows what. So he'd made a fairly rational (considering inside he was gibbering with panic) decision to use the only available weapon at hand. He'd ended up killing the kid, of course, because at no time ever does 160 pounds of flesh and blood match fairly against three tons of steel. He'd killed the kid, and he still can't think of anything nice to say about him. With the crushed hand and the head injuries and the internal bleeding, in a way, he sort of feels he's earned his penance. But what kind of person does it make him that he can find nothing positive about a human life that he'd willfully extinguished?
6. Right here, right now, he does not feel guilty about this. Tomorrow, all the rationalizations may come in to play, like that Nick and he work together, that they're both so incredibly fucked up the PD probably keeps shrinks on staff devoted solely to their case files, that Nick is the most obvious candidate to be his next supervisor. But tonight, when Nick had finally moved inside him, staring down at him with his dark eyes soft and mysterious like velvet, Greg felt peace steal over him like he hasn't felt in almost half a decade. Curled up together with the man he's been half in love with since forever, he can tell they're both thinking. But neither of them are tensing up, neither of them are making a move to leave. They're just kissing and stroking and learning each other's bodies the way that they already understand each other's heart and soul. They've each fought so long and hard just to be alive today, and no one understands the struggle it is just to get out of bed on a lot of days. But Nick knows, and Greg knows, and they don't have to talk about it. Yeah, he might feel guilty tomorrow. But then again, probably not. Greg thinks they'll be just fine.
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Date: 2008-05-12 08:37 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-05-12 01:31 pm (UTC)That was just beautifully worded and I think one of the main reasons there are so many of us hard-core N/G supporters. It's not just that they have chemistry together in all their scene's, it's that they do seem to have a connection that is soul-deep.
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Date: 2008-05-13 01:34 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-05-14 10:36 pm (UTC)Despite my personal issues with that, I am totally in love with this guilty Greg of yours. I enjoyed his colourful language very much. If only he was allowed to be this outspoken on screen:)
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Date: 2008-05-15 12:37 am (UTC)As for Greg being smart and feeling dumb, that's one of the canon things I truly love about his character. He's so credentialed and successful, and yet there are moments when he clearly feels inadequate, or stupid, or slinks around, or lets the other CSI's unfairly boss him around. Eric does an amazing job of showing that duality in his character. On the other hand, there are days when he flabbergasts me and dresses Grissom down for not appreciating Mia enough or kicks the CSI's out of his lab when he's in a totally pissy mood. It's just great that he's never all one thing that can be pinned down.
About the drugs- I was trying to show an instance here where Greg acts irresponsibly or self-destructively in a way that's not habitual. I don't think Greg uses drugs at all (most chemists I know don't, and most law enforcement people I know really don't), but it's possible to act in a way that's out of character because our defenses are down or because we're tired and make a stupid decision. This was less of a conscious choice on Greg's part, than a "meh, I'm off duty, I may as well finish." I know from, *ahem*, personal experience that those brownies aren't necessarily that strong. Plus, he went to school in Cali, and there's no way he got through undergrad without experimenting, so I doubt seriously he's a virgin to pot. Probably to harder stuff, but I also know recovering addicts where you would never ever guess, so it's at least a plausible part of his background.
In fanfic, I've noticed this tendency by a lot of writers to make a saint out of Greg especially, which is easy to do I guess in that he's a young, energetic, lovable person who really doesn't have a truly mean bone in his body. But he makes mistakes, and he's conflicted, and he's driven, and despite his skill and how hard he worked to be a CSI, I doubt it's really the right job for him because he's so acutely sensitive, more so even than Nick. That to me is what makes him a fascinating character, although all the CSI's are really interesting in their own ways.
Wow, this was long! Sorry bout that! But thanks so much for your comments. It means a lot to me that people find this version believable. =)
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Date: 2008-05-15 04:30 pm (UTC)I have to say I was especially struck by the supposed inconsistency in his behavior (very human by the way) because I personally hate not being in control of my brain, hence my no drinking/no drugs background. I'm from the Netherlands and the rest of the world always assumes that because of our tolerant laws towards (soft)drugs everybody here has at least experimented with pot. EHm, that would be a 'no'. I was never interested in that.
But I can see Greg being curious enough or maybe wanting to join in badly enough (based on some references to him being bullied in school) to give it a try. You sure made a good case for it;)
I noticed you mentioned older fic on ff.net. I hope you will post that in The Desert as soon as the new sitesystem is active: WMTDB (http://wmtdb.zero-creativity.net/beautiful/) :)