Amends (5/?)
Title: Amends
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Fandom: CSI
Characters: Nick/Greg
Warnings: Underage sexual relationship and discussions of whether this is abusive. Discussions of canon child abuse.
Summary: When Greg's first boyfriend appears in Las Vegas, his reason for being there provokes some soul-searching.
Author's note: With thanks to podga , for a lightning fast, charming, and discerning beta. Any inadequacies or errors in this story are my own. With thanks to lillyg , for being such a delightful nag.
Chapter Five
The silence that came after the lock on their bedroom door scraped shut rang in Greg’s ears. He had forgotten how the absence of noise that hung between two people who weren’t talking could pulse and tremble like a bassline.
Greg sat at the table for a while, staring at the flecks of ash floating in his vodka, until he couldn’t stand the freefall in his stomach for another second. He grabbed his keys and headed out.
***
“Come in.” James held the door open so that Greg could walk past him.
“I’ve really fucked things up this time.”
James tilted his head to one side. “This isn’t you coming to drown your sorrows in cock, is it? Because we are so not going there.”
Greg shook his head mutely.
James‘s gaze on his face sharpened. “What‘s up?”
Greg took a breath, fighting against the sensation of his chest tightening. “I don’t know.”
James frowned. “Why don‘t I make you some coffee and you can tell me what happened?”
James’s apartment was open plan, and the table that stretched along one length of the main living space was its epicenter. The place that the GLBT centre had been planned at. The glossy white surface that Greg had eaten countless dinners on, and wiped wine and cigarette ash from, and fucked on. The closest thing that Greg had to a confessional.
“I don’t know.” He sat down, and leaned his elbows on the table. “I was printing something off from Nick’s laptop and I clicked the wrong button and ended up in his email. When I saw that you’d sent him some stuff, I realised that he must have talked to you.”
James pulled a bag of coffee beans from the fridge and tipped some into the grinder. “Did you discuss it with Nick?”
“Yeah. He‘s trying to figure out all this Andy stuff. He wanted a second opinion.”
James made a noise that could have been agreement, and Greg felt a brief wave of irritation that Nick’s discussion with him was apparently under some kind of therapists’ seal of confidentiality.
Greg dipped his head. “I felt like he’d betrayed me.”
“He’s not allowed to discuss your relationship with anyone else?”
“It made me sick to my stomach, Wilkie.” Greg clenched his fists against his jeans.
James tipped coffee from the grinder into a French press and poured boiling water on top of it. “Why?”
Greg shivered involuntarily, anger already spent. “I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
Greg’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
James’s tone was calm. “That’s okay.” He looked at Greg. “I want you to know that you are safe. That you can tell me anything you need to and it stays within these four walls.”
Greg rubbed his fingers savagely over his eyes. “Is this the line that you give your clients, Wilkie?”
James’s face was impassive. “It’s not a line.”
Greg hunched his shoulders. “Yeah.”
James watched the muscle in Greg’s jaw twitch. He hesitated. “What happened tonight?”
Greg let out a breath. “We had a fight.”
“A fight?”
Greg pulled one foot onto the edge of his chair and rested his chin on his knee. “Not really a fight. I yelled at Nick. I accused him of betraying me. I said he was stupid.” He paused, with his mouth open, tongue almost refusing to shape the words. “I put my hands on him.”
“You hit him?” James’s tone was flat.
Greg shook his head. “I shook him. I held him by the arms and shook him and shouted in his face. He had to push me off of him.”
“What made you do that?”
Greg’s head snapped back. “What made me do that? Nothing made me do it. He didn’t deserve it.”
James pushed the plunger of the French press down. Greg watched the coffee grounds swirl up towards the metal.
“I’m not saying that it’s Nick’s fault.” James’s tone was mild. “I’m asking what was going through your mind.”
“That he wouldn’t listen to me.” Greg said, immediately. “That he had to stop and listen to me.”
“Does Nick usually listen to you?”
“Of course he does.” Greg’s tone was scornful. “He’s the nicest guy in the whole world.”
“So what makes you think he wasn’t listening to you tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
Greg leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. James poured coffee into their mugs.
“Why do you like me?” Greg asked. “Why are we friends?”
“Because you’re a good guy. And you’re smart and funny. And you‘re the only other thirty-something man I know who knows all the words to the Buffy musical episode.” James took a sip of his coffee. “And because you were there through some truly shit-awful times in my life.”
Greg was staring at the table. “Sometimes I think that you were just around for the sex.”
James started to speak, but Greg cut him off.
“It’s not,” he said, carefully, “that I think that’s what’s really going on. It’s just that sometimes I get this idea that you were just around for the fucking and Nick’s just around because he doesn’t know any better, and a part of me knows that’s bullshit, but it still feels real.”
Greg ran his finger along the edge of the table. “I just had this picture in my head of the two of you talking about what a pathetic loser I am.”
James put his hand on Greg’s shoulder. “You’re one of the best people I know, dude. Why is it so easy for you to think that people aren’t being sincere in loving you?”
“I don’t know how to be someone’s friend. This shit with Andy has just reminded me of that.”
“What do you mean?” James’s face was screwed up in confusion. “You‘re my best friend. The person I can count on above any other.”
“The person who phoned you up to tell you that his ex might be positive without even thinking about how you might feel? Seriously, Wilkie, I‘m the best you got?”
James looked into his mug.
“I never had close buddies until Amelia in high school.” Greg snorted. “I don’t want you to think I’m a total loser. I mean, there were always kids at my birthday party, but I didn’t fit in. My Mom had me in this gifted program and I studied all the time, but I didn’t even really fit in with the science nerds.”
“A lot of kids take a while to find their niche. We see it at the centre all the time.”
“It’s not just that. I was a pretty shitty friend when I did find someone to be close with.”
***
June, 1998
***
“You moved the bed.” Greg looked around him. “And that notice board is new.”
Amelia lifted one shoulder. “It’s been there for a year.”
“Oh.”
She smiled, suddenly. “It’s okay, Greg. All those college visits. Hanging with Andy. Homework. I know you’ve been busy.”
He stood, awkwardly, hands hanging by his sides. “Yeah, well, things are over with Andy.”
She stood, quietly, next to her desk, and he knew that if she were even the least bit sorry then she would be talking to him, instead of letting the silence draw out between them.
Greg pulled a piece of paper out of his messenger bag. “And we‘re getting the heck out of Dodge. Is it freakish that I’m beyond excited by college reading lists? So much more sophisticated than high school books.”
Amelia smiled a small smile. “No, I’m looking forward to an epic trip to the college bookstore.”
She ran the toe of her Chuck T up the back of her jeans. “Do you think it will be weird for our parents without us?”
Greg shrugged. “I guess. A little. But they’ve had to have been preparing for this. Right?”
Amelia pulled her sleeves down over her hands.
Greg looked at her. “And your parents still have your sister. It‘s not like they‘ll be all alone.”
“Yeah.“ Her expression flickered and she held out her hand... “Pass me that housing brochure that‘s lying on the bed?”
****
Present Day
****
“Amelia never told me what was going on with her family, and I never pushed it.”
James frowned. “And how does that make you a shitty friend? How long did it take me to tell you about my collection of freakish relatives?”
Greg took a deep breath. “I saw her during Christmas break our freshman year of college. She looked like she weighed about as much as a Franklin Mint teapot. Andy was always convinced she had some kind of eating disorder, but she said everything was fine and the dining hall food was disgusting, and she was so busy with studying she kept forgetting to eat. And Yale, you know? It‘s hard work.”
James put his hand on Greg’s arm.
“She killed herself two weeks after she went back east.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“Greg, I’m so sorry.“ James tightened his grip on Greg.
“Thanks.”
“Hey, don’t brush that off, man.” James took a sip of his coffee. “You know that wasn’t your fault, right?”
Greg sighed. “Yes, and no. I get that she was responsible for what she did, but no man is an island. I was so wrapped up in this completely unhealthy relationship that I let things slide. And now the thing that I gave time to instead of my friends is back in my face telling me I was some abused little boy.”
“And how are you doing with that?”
Greg took a deep breath. “I want to talk about it with Nick, but it’s complicated.”
“Because he was abused?” James’s voice was mild.
“He talked to you about that?” Greg couldn’t keep the sharpness out of his voice.
James shook his head. “He mentioned it because he was worried he was over-reacting to what happened between you and Andy.”
Greg swallowed. “Last night, when I was getting drunk and stupid, I tried to tell myself that I was worried about bringing stuff up for him.”
“But that’s not it?”
Greg shook his head, miserably.
“I think you should go and talk to him.”
Greg looked at the clock on the wall. “He’ll be asleep now. I’ll talk to him after shift.”
***
“Everything okay, Nicky?”
Nick looked up from the coffee pot in the breakroom. Catherine was standing in front of the open fridge door, a can of Fresca in her hand.
“Yeah.” He smiled at her. “I just spaced out there for a moment.”
“Long shift?” She closed the door.
“Dumpster diving for body parts.”
“Nice.” She smiled sympathetically. “Listen,” she said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Can I talk to you about something?”
“Sure.” Nick leaned against the counter.
She sat down in one of the comfortless breakroom chairs and crossed one long leg over the other.
“So, Lindsay’s finding the GLBT Centre really supportive, but she said something the other day that’s got me thinking.”
“Oh?”
Catherine looked at Nick and he saw the concern on her face written in the lines around her mouth.
“She’s been talking about this girl Caitlyn who goes to the Centre, for months, and how Caitlyn totally got her and how similar they were. I was really happy that she’d found a friend there, who might get what she was going through. But the other night we were having dinner and she said that she and Caitlyn are going on a date, and I’m now a little concerned about their safety.”
Nick blinked. “You mean if they’re out mixing with the general public?”
Catherine’s mouth sketched an embarrassed smile. “Does that sound ridiculous?”
“No, not at all. Catherine. Would it help to just ask her about safety, and what resources the Centre has for young women?”
Catherine swirled the Fresca around in its can. “Yeah. It’s just, how do you even approach that without making her afraid?”
Nick considered. “She knows what you do for a living. Of all the things out there in the world, I doubt it’s going to be talking about it with you that makes her scared.”
Catherine shook her head. “I was looking at a couple of GLBT websites, and one had a story about lesbian women in South Africa getting raped by men trying to make them, quote, normal.”
Nick sat down next to Catherine and put his arm around her shoulders. “Jesus, Catherine.”
“It totally freaked me out.”
“I can see why.” He made a face. “No one can say that Lindsey is never going to have a moment’s unhappiness in her life, but she has a great Mom and a good head on her shoulders, and that has to count for something. And, if all else fails, you can ground her until she’s 21.”
Catherine laughed weakly and leaned her head against his shoulder for a second. “When did you get so smart, Nicky?”
“I wish I was smart about my own life.” Nick’s tone was more bitter than he’d meant it to be.
“Problems?” Catherine looked at his face, and she was so close that he could see the lipstick feathering around the edges of her lipline.
“A little bit.” He shook his head. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
Catherine ran her fingers under each eye with the practiced ease of a woman trying not to smudge her mascara, and Nick hoped that he was telling the truth.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Fandom: CSI
Characters: Nick/Greg
Warnings: Underage sexual relationship and discussions of whether this is abusive. Discussions of canon child abuse.
Summary: When Greg's first boyfriend appears in Las Vegas, his reason for being there provokes some soul-searching.
Author's note: With thanks to podga , for a lightning fast, charming, and discerning beta. Any inadequacies or errors in this story are my own. With thanks to lillyg , for being such a delightful nag.
Chapter Five
The silence that came after the lock on their bedroom door scraped shut rang in Greg’s ears. He had forgotten how the absence of noise that hung between two people who weren’t talking could pulse and tremble like a bassline.
Greg sat at the table for a while, staring at the flecks of ash floating in his vodka, until he couldn’t stand the freefall in his stomach for another second. He grabbed his keys and headed out.
***
“Come in.” James held the door open so that Greg could walk past him.
“I’ve really fucked things up this time.”
James tilted his head to one side. “This isn’t you coming to drown your sorrows in cock, is it? Because we are so not going there.”
Greg shook his head mutely.
James‘s gaze on his face sharpened. “What‘s up?”
Greg took a breath, fighting against the sensation of his chest tightening. “I don’t know.”
James frowned. “Why don‘t I make you some coffee and you can tell me what happened?”
James’s apartment was open plan, and the table that stretched along one length of the main living space was its epicenter. The place that the GLBT centre had been planned at. The glossy white surface that Greg had eaten countless dinners on, and wiped wine and cigarette ash from, and fucked on. The closest thing that Greg had to a confessional.
“I don’t know.” He sat down, and leaned his elbows on the table. “I was printing something off from Nick’s laptop and I clicked the wrong button and ended up in his email. When I saw that you’d sent him some stuff, I realised that he must have talked to you.”
James pulled a bag of coffee beans from the fridge and tipped some into the grinder. “Did you discuss it with Nick?”
“Yeah. He‘s trying to figure out all this Andy stuff. He wanted a second opinion.”
James made a noise that could have been agreement, and Greg felt a brief wave of irritation that Nick’s discussion with him was apparently under some kind of therapists’ seal of confidentiality.
Greg dipped his head. “I felt like he’d betrayed me.”
“He’s not allowed to discuss your relationship with anyone else?”
“It made me sick to my stomach, Wilkie.” Greg clenched his fists against his jeans.
James tipped coffee from the grinder into a French press and poured boiling water on top of it. “Why?”
Greg shivered involuntarily, anger already spent. “I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
Greg’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
James’s tone was calm. “That’s okay.” He looked at Greg. “I want you to know that you are safe. That you can tell me anything you need to and it stays within these four walls.”
Greg rubbed his fingers savagely over his eyes. “Is this the line that you give your clients, Wilkie?”
James’s face was impassive. “It’s not a line.”
Greg hunched his shoulders. “Yeah.”
James watched the muscle in Greg’s jaw twitch. He hesitated. “What happened tonight?”
Greg let out a breath. “We had a fight.”
“A fight?”
Greg pulled one foot onto the edge of his chair and rested his chin on his knee. “Not really a fight. I yelled at Nick. I accused him of betraying me. I said he was stupid.” He paused, with his mouth open, tongue almost refusing to shape the words. “I put my hands on him.”
“You hit him?” James’s tone was flat.
Greg shook his head. “I shook him. I held him by the arms and shook him and shouted in his face. He had to push me off of him.”
“What made you do that?”
Greg’s head snapped back. “What made me do that? Nothing made me do it. He didn’t deserve it.”
James pushed the plunger of the French press down. Greg watched the coffee grounds swirl up towards the metal.
“I’m not saying that it’s Nick’s fault.” James’s tone was mild. “I’m asking what was going through your mind.”
“That he wouldn’t listen to me.” Greg said, immediately. “That he had to stop and listen to me.”
“Does Nick usually listen to you?”
“Of course he does.” Greg’s tone was scornful. “He’s the nicest guy in the whole world.”
“So what makes you think he wasn’t listening to you tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
Greg leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. James poured coffee into their mugs.
“Why do you like me?” Greg asked. “Why are we friends?”
“Because you’re a good guy. And you’re smart and funny. And you‘re the only other thirty-something man I know who knows all the words to the Buffy musical episode.” James took a sip of his coffee. “And because you were there through some truly shit-awful times in my life.”
Greg was staring at the table. “Sometimes I think that you were just around for the sex.”
James started to speak, but Greg cut him off.
“It’s not,” he said, carefully, “that I think that’s what’s really going on. It’s just that sometimes I get this idea that you were just around for the fucking and Nick’s just around because he doesn’t know any better, and a part of me knows that’s bullshit, but it still feels real.”
Greg ran his finger along the edge of the table. “I just had this picture in my head of the two of you talking about what a pathetic loser I am.”
James put his hand on Greg’s shoulder. “You’re one of the best people I know, dude. Why is it so easy for you to think that people aren’t being sincere in loving you?”
“I don’t know how to be someone’s friend. This shit with Andy has just reminded me of that.”
“What do you mean?” James’s face was screwed up in confusion. “You‘re my best friend. The person I can count on above any other.”
“The person who phoned you up to tell you that his ex might be positive without even thinking about how you might feel? Seriously, Wilkie, I‘m the best you got?”
James looked into his mug.
“I never had close buddies until Amelia in high school.” Greg snorted. “I don’t want you to think I’m a total loser. I mean, there were always kids at my birthday party, but I didn’t fit in. My Mom had me in this gifted program and I studied all the time, but I didn’t even really fit in with the science nerds.”
“A lot of kids take a while to find their niche. We see it at the centre all the time.”
“It’s not just that. I was a pretty shitty friend when I did find someone to be close with.”
***
June, 1998
***
“You moved the bed.” Greg looked around him. “And that notice board is new.”
Amelia lifted one shoulder. “It’s been there for a year.”
“Oh.”
She smiled, suddenly. “It’s okay, Greg. All those college visits. Hanging with Andy. Homework. I know you’ve been busy.”
He stood, awkwardly, hands hanging by his sides. “Yeah, well, things are over with Andy.”
She stood, quietly, next to her desk, and he knew that if she were even the least bit sorry then she would be talking to him, instead of letting the silence draw out between them.
Greg pulled a piece of paper out of his messenger bag. “And we‘re getting the heck out of Dodge. Is it freakish that I’m beyond excited by college reading lists? So much more sophisticated than high school books.”
Amelia smiled a small smile. “No, I’m looking forward to an epic trip to the college bookstore.”
She ran the toe of her Chuck T up the back of her jeans. “Do you think it will be weird for our parents without us?”
Greg shrugged. “I guess. A little. But they’ve had to have been preparing for this. Right?”
Amelia pulled her sleeves down over her hands.
Greg looked at her. “And your parents still have your sister. It‘s not like they‘ll be all alone.”
“Yeah.“ Her expression flickered and she held out her hand... “Pass me that housing brochure that‘s lying on the bed?”
****
Present Day
****
“Amelia never told me what was going on with her family, and I never pushed it.”
James frowned. “And how does that make you a shitty friend? How long did it take me to tell you about my collection of freakish relatives?”
Greg took a deep breath. “I saw her during Christmas break our freshman year of college. She looked like she weighed about as much as a Franklin Mint teapot. Andy was always convinced she had some kind of eating disorder, but she said everything was fine and the dining hall food was disgusting, and she was so busy with studying she kept forgetting to eat. And Yale, you know? It‘s hard work.”
James put his hand on Greg’s arm.
“She killed herself two weeks after she went back east.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“Greg, I’m so sorry.“ James tightened his grip on Greg.
“Thanks.”
“Hey, don’t brush that off, man.” James took a sip of his coffee. “You know that wasn’t your fault, right?”
Greg sighed. “Yes, and no. I get that she was responsible for what she did, but no man is an island. I was so wrapped up in this completely unhealthy relationship that I let things slide. And now the thing that I gave time to instead of my friends is back in my face telling me I was some abused little boy.”
“And how are you doing with that?”
Greg took a deep breath. “I want to talk about it with Nick, but it’s complicated.”
“Because he was abused?” James’s voice was mild.
“He talked to you about that?” Greg couldn’t keep the sharpness out of his voice.
James shook his head. “He mentioned it because he was worried he was over-reacting to what happened between you and Andy.”
Greg swallowed. “Last night, when I was getting drunk and stupid, I tried to tell myself that I was worried about bringing stuff up for him.”
“But that’s not it?”
Greg shook his head, miserably.
“I think you should go and talk to him.”
Greg looked at the clock on the wall. “He’ll be asleep now. I’ll talk to him after shift.”
***
“Everything okay, Nicky?”
Nick looked up from the coffee pot in the breakroom. Catherine was standing in front of the open fridge door, a can of Fresca in her hand.
“Yeah.” He smiled at her. “I just spaced out there for a moment.”
“Long shift?” She closed the door.
“Dumpster diving for body parts.”
“Nice.” She smiled sympathetically. “Listen,” she said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Can I talk to you about something?”
“Sure.” Nick leaned against the counter.
She sat down in one of the comfortless breakroom chairs and crossed one long leg over the other.
“So, Lindsay’s finding the GLBT Centre really supportive, but she said something the other day that’s got me thinking.”
“Oh?”
Catherine looked at Nick and he saw the concern on her face written in the lines around her mouth.
“She’s been talking about this girl Caitlyn who goes to the Centre, for months, and how Caitlyn totally got her and how similar they were. I was really happy that she’d found a friend there, who might get what she was going through. But the other night we were having dinner and she said that she and Caitlyn are going on a date, and I’m now a little concerned about their safety.”
Nick blinked. “You mean if they’re out mixing with the general public?”
Catherine’s mouth sketched an embarrassed smile. “Does that sound ridiculous?”
“No, not at all. Catherine. Would it help to just ask her about safety, and what resources the Centre has for young women?”
Catherine swirled the Fresca around in its can. “Yeah. It’s just, how do you even approach that without making her afraid?”
Nick considered. “She knows what you do for a living. Of all the things out there in the world, I doubt it’s going to be talking about it with you that makes her scared.”
Catherine shook her head. “I was looking at a couple of GLBT websites, and one had a story about lesbian women in South Africa getting raped by men trying to make them, quote, normal.”
Nick sat down next to Catherine and put his arm around her shoulders. “Jesus, Catherine.”
“It totally freaked me out.”
“I can see why.” He made a face. “No one can say that Lindsey is never going to have a moment’s unhappiness in her life, but she has a great Mom and a good head on her shoulders, and that has to count for something. And, if all else fails, you can ground her until she’s 21.”
Catherine laughed weakly and leaned her head against his shoulder for a second. “When did you get so smart, Nicky?”
“I wish I was smart about my own life.” Nick’s tone was more bitter than he’d meant it to be.
“Problems?” Catherine looked at his face, and she was so close that he could see the lipstick feathering around the edges of her lipline.
“A little bit.” He shook his head. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
Catherine ran her fingers under each eye with the practiced ease of a woman trying not to smudge her mascara, and Nick hoped that he was telling the truth.