fic: You Don't Say
I'm still doing some housecleaning around my LJ. That's pretty much why it looks terrible and why I have nothing filled out. .___. Ugh. This has been like a two week ordeal. Anyway!
You Don't Say
Summary: The thing about Greg is that he's just like the rest of them: he still has a breaking point.
Rating: PG13 (I swore a little c:)
Pairing: N/G
Spoilers/Warnings: No spoilers. Except for the obvious, Greg-is-a-CSI one, but I'm not sure that counts, really.
Notes: This is shamelessly stolen from the idea that Greg is almost entirely underutilized on the show. (read: I would very much like him to get an awesome storyline this season. (Please?))
“Damn it!”
This early in the morning, long after Grissom had sent his team home, it’s surprising to hear a voice that sounds so familiar ring through the halls. Shortly after the frustrated yell comes what seems to be metallic slamming, growing softer as it echoes through the hallways. He slides away from his desk and the paperwork on top of it, and walks through the halls until he hears another slam.
He heads towards the locker room, nodding towards the dayshift CSIs that say hello to him. Outside the locker room, a group of dayshift CSIs and lab techs stand outside, muttering to each other in hushed tones he can barely make out.
“What the hell was that?”
“You heard him scream, right?”
“You know, I think he’s a graveyard CSI-they’re all crazy, I’ve heard.”
Grissom purses his lips and clears his throat. The lab tech closest to him jumps and turns around to face him. “What’s going on?”
“Oh!” she cries, backing up into a much larger man. “Sorry, Mr. Grissom, I didn’t see you there!”
Another slam sounds from inside the locker room, metal on metal, and the crowd around him turns their attention back to the door. Grissom ignores it. “Again, what’s going on?”
“We think one of your CSI’s still hasn’t left… and he sort of barricaded the door so we can’t get in.”
Grissom flickers his eyes amongst the group. “Aren’t you supposed to report to your supervisors?”
The lab techs scurry away, muttering apologies, in one direction, while the CSIs head back towards the break room. Once he’s sure that they’re all out of hearing range, he knocks on the door. “Hello?”
“Grissom?”
Close up, it sounds even more familiar. One thing the woman had right was that it was a nightshift CSI, though Grissom’s having some trouble identifying exactly who it is. “May I come in?”
“…Uh… yeah.”
Grissom waits, and waits, but nothing sounds like it’s happening beyond the door. Thanks to a voyeuristic lab technician on swings, the surrounding glass had been covered the week before with large sheets of paper, leaving him no choice but to ask, “…Are you going to let me in?”
“The door’s open. The dayshift guys still haven’t gotten used to opening it since Nick broke the doorknob off the door last week after that case with the missing toddler`.”
“Nick broke the doorknob off?” He frowns at the doorknob as he wiggles and jiggles it a moment. It rattles around in the socket aimlessly. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Finally getting the door open, Grissom only sticks his head in before he opens it all the way. Greg’s sitting at the end of the bench in front of him, holding his head in his hands, resting his elbows on his knees. One leg of his jeans is ripped straight up to the knee, and a gash that spans the length looks like it’s what’s keeping Greg from changing his clothes. He wants to tell Greg to get it looked at and cleaned up to steer clear of infection, but he fears changing the subject won’t help very much.
“He said he was going to call it in and pay for it himself, but nobody’s shown up,” Greg says after a moment. Grissom still doesn’t interject. After a glance towards his supervisor, Greg mutters under his breath, “I’m not sure if that means that he has called someone or if he hasn’t.”
A little afraid of getting too involved in Greg’s troubles, whatever they may be, Grissom closes the door behind him and points back towards it over his shoulder. “Dayshift’s here.”
Greg groans. “I know. I need a moment.”
“You can’t get a moment at home?” Grissom asks, as politely as he can-but it seems to set Greg off again.
“I can’t get a moment anywhere! I-It’s like.” He sighs, sits up straight. When he turns to Grissom, he looks him dead in the eye and says, “I can’t get a moment of peace. Ever. Not at home, and definitely not here.”
Grissom frowns. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“You mean you haven’t noticed that you keep sending me on crap cases? Trash runs, for example? I’m pretty sure we’ve had, what, six of those in the last week and I’ve been on every one of them.”
He tries not to let the amusement show. “There were ten, Greg. I sent a swing CSI filling in for Catherine out on the others.”
Greg just snorts and shakes his head. “It’s not just that. Ecklie keeps putting me back in the lab. I’m not even sure how many times he’s asked me to cover for Wendy since she said she wanted more field experience. And that incompetent DNA tech on dayshift that processes so slow it’s like he’s waiting for the samples to grow jaws and just tell him who the killer is? Oh, and what about when I actually do find myself on a real case, and whenever I find something, people are generally out of the room or they just throw it off to good luck? I don’t even get thanked-or asked anymore, people just walk up to me and say, “Hey, Greg, it’d be great if you could take my shift on Thursday, I have a wedding I have to be at, or, Oh, goody, you’re off work, that means you can take over so I can go drinking.”
“Have you tried-“
But he keeps on going. “And, I’m pretty sure that the chicken place I have to go to for lunch because somebody keeps stealing mine has been cheating me out of money, because every time I go, the prices get higher and higher. My neighbor has been complaining about sneezing every time she walks in the hallway because she thinks I’ve gotten a cat, which I haven’t, that bastard down the hall has, so she’s been pinning notices on my door threatening to tell the landlord about the cat I don’t have, and Catherine’s started yelling at me on crime scenes for things like accidently messing up the coffee order I voluntarily called in when she called me in, or talking to Vartann or Brass about what’s going on, or taking thirty seconds to put on gloves before I enter a room-and at home!” He laughs exasperatedly. “I don’t even-“
He laughs, griping at his hair. This time, when he makes eye contact with Grissom, he looks like he’s trying hard not to cry. “I haven’t been able to keep a goldfish alive in a year and a half, my mother’s calling me at least once a day to update me on my father’s golfing score, and Nick-God, Nick has even more problems than I do.”
Idly, Grissom wonders what Nick has to do with Greg’s home life, but he pushes that to the back of his mind, instead asking, “Have you filed complaints with anyone about the treatment from your supervisors?”
Greg lifts his head incredulously. “You’re asking if I’ve told on you?”
He shrugs. “Evidently, I’ve been treating you unfairly. If I need to be assessed, then I suppose that I need to be assessed. It’s not telling if it’s true.”
A blink. “Are you asking me to tell on you?”
“No, Greg. I’m saying that if you have a problem with me, you shouldn’t let it go unannounced.” He pauses, watching Greg’s face change from emotion to emotion while he processes Grissom’s words. “It’s unhealthy.”
He laughs, a bitter laugh that almost pains Grissom to hear it. It’s nothing like the sort of laughter Grissom’s used to hearing from the man. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s the why I’m in such a rut. God, I can’t even keep my relationship afloat.”
Grissom doesn’t ask, afraid to pry-besides, he doesn’t really want to know-but Greg keeps going anyway. Eyeing the bench, Grissom begins to wonder if he needs to sit down. “I’ve broken up with the same guy six times in the last three months, and we’ve gotten back together seven times. I mean, yeah, things change, but let’s be honest, how much can a person change in three months? For that matter, how much can his family change in three months? I mean, there is so much working against us, I don’t-“ He stops, shakes his head and stands up from the bench. “Sorry, you really don’t need to hear about the problems in my love life.”
“Oh, no, no,” Grissom says, shaking his head. “Please, get it out. It may lighten the mood for the rest of us to know that even those as optimistic as you find yourself in slumps sometimes.” Greg ‘ha’s, but doesn’t say anything. “Still, Greg… It would make me feel much better if you would see a psychologist about these things.”
“I’m already seeing a psychologist. I work in a crime lab, it’s sort of hard not to,” Greg says, emphasizing his words by slamming his locker open.
While he ponders his next move, Grissom moves his gaze from Greg to his open locker. It’s been a while since he’s stepped foot in the locker room, and even longer since he’s had this sort of conversation with Greg, but he distinctly remembers Greg’s locker much barer than it is now. Photos plaster the upper half of his locker door, overlapping corners and bending sides to fit in. He squints to get a better look. Many of them are photos of people he doesn’t know with Greg, and a few of the team, but above all, Nick appears far more often than any of the others. If Grissom recalls correctly, he’s even in a photo with Greg and his parents.
Oh. That’s what Nick has to do with Greg’s home life.
Grissom bring his attention back to Greg, who’s digging through the bottom of his locker and frowning. He tries to sound nonchalant, unsurprised, when he says, “Have you tried talking to Nick about this?”
“Nick?” Greg asks immediately, turning to Grissom with a light blush on his face Grissom was sure wasn’t there moments ago. “Why would I talk to Nick about this?”
“The two of you live together, don’t you? Shouldn’t someone so important in your life be allowed to know these sorts of things?”
Looking as though he still wants to argue the point, Greg opens and closes his mouth a few times, making frustrated expressions as he does it. Finally, he settles on, “Well, yeah. But, he isn’t always the easiest to talk to when it comes to problems at work. You know he complained about the last new transfer we had? I swear, for like, three weeks I couldn’t go home without hearing about her and how unorganized she was and how it took her twice as long to get results back to him.”
“And he never complained about her formally?”
Greg rubs roughly at his eyes with his palms and says, in a voice with only barely concealing emotion, “He doesn’t like to be the reason people lose their jobs.”
“He wouldn’t have been,” Grissom tells him. “She would have lost her job because she couldn’t keep up with the pace. You kept up with the pace. We never heard complaints or shortcomings from you when you were our DNA technician.”
Greg’s sudden change in posture suggests some amount of surprise to Grissom. “Thanks,” he says finally. “I haven’t heard work-related compliments in a while.”
Grissom raises an eyebrow. He still hasn’t moved, and he can hear more voices from the hallway behind him. “I don’t see why not.” With a short of shrug, Greg stands up with a sigh and returns to his locker.
“I don’t know why I haven’t just transferred out yet,” Greg mutters, swearing under his breath as he drops something in his locker.
Despite knowing that he’s not supposed to have an answer to that, Grissom still does. “You’re obviously getting something here that you wouldn’t anywhere else. You know, Greg…” He waits until Greg glances his way. “We accept the love that we think we deserve.”
“Now you’re saying that I basically hate myself.”
Shrugging, Grissom grips the doorknob behind him. “You have to decide that for yourself.”
Greg hums in response, and Grissom turns to open the door, wiggling and jiggling like he remembers Greg told him.
“Just-let me do that.” Greg takes the doorknob out of Grissom’s hand and lifts up harshly, pushing it back towards the frame and opening it. “A sign might be helpful.”
“A new doorknob might be as well.” Grissom says, leaving the room and turning back to Greg amidst the dayshift CSIs. “Thank you, Greg.”
His face almost lights up. “You’re welcome.”
Again, Grissom turns away, only to look back and say, “You should talk to him about these things.”
Greg frowns a bit, cocking his head the littlest amount before he nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I probably should.”
With the dayshift employees watching the two of them with confused expressions, Grissom heads back towards his office. A few of the dayshifters try to entice gossip out of him, but he waves them all away with his hand, continuing back to the comforting confines of his office.
He’s only just settling back down to finish his paperwork when he sees Greg pass by his open office door. Without a word, he stops just outside for a moment… but doesn’t look towards Grissom at all. In fact, Grissom only vaguely knows that he’s standing there. Slowly but surely, Greg’s sneakers finally start to squeak-squeak as he continues down the hall.
And if Grissom’s ears aren’t deceiving him, when some of the lab techs say hello to them, there’s a new tone to Greg’s responding voice that Grissom realizes he hasn’t heard from Greg in a long time.
Hope.
/end
You Don't Say
Summary: The thing about Greg is that he's just like the rest of them: he still has a breaking point.
Rating: PG13 (I swore a little c:)
Pairing: N/G
Spoilers/Warnings: No spoilers. Except for the obvious, Greg-is-a-CSI one, but I'm not sure that counts, really.
Notes: This is shamelessly stolen from the idea that Greg is almost entirely underutilized on the show. (read: I would very much like him to get an awesome storyline this season. (Please?))
“Damn it!”
This early in the morning, long after Grissom had sent his team home, it’s surprising to hear a voice that sounds so familiar ring through the halls. Shortly after the frustrated yell comes what seems to be metallic slamming, growing softer as it echoes through the hallways. He slides away from his desk and the paperwork on top of it, and walks through the halls until he hears another slam.
He heads towards the locker room, nodding towards the dayshift CSIs that say hello to him. Outside the locker room, a group of dayshift CSIs and lab techs stand outside, muttering to each other in hushed tones he can barely make out.
“What the hell was that?”
“You heard him scream, right?”
“You know, I think he’s a graveyard CSI-they’re all crazy, I’ve heard.”
Grissom purses his lips and clears his throat. The lab tech closest to him jumps and turns around to face him. “What’s going on?”
“Oh!” she cries, backing up into a much larger man. “Sorry, Mr. Grissom, I didn’t see you there!”
Another slam sounds from inside the locker room, metal on metal, and the crowd around him turns their attention back to the door. Grissom ignores it. “Again, what’s going on?”
“We think one of your CSI’s still hasn’t left… and he sort of barricaded the door so we can’t get in.”
Grissom flickers his eyes amongst the group. “Aren’t you supposed to report to your supervisors?”
The lab techs scurry away, muttering apologies, in one direction, while the CSIs head back towards the break room. Once he’s sure that they’re all out of hearing range, he knocks on the door. “Hello?”
“Grissom?”
Close up, it sounds even more familiar. One thing the woman had right was that it was a nightshift CSI, though Grissom’s having some trouble identifying exactly who it is. “May I come in?”
“…Uh… yeah.”
Grissom waits, and waits, but nothing sounds like it’s happening beyond the door. Thanks to a voyeuristic lab technician on swings, the surrounding glass had been covered the week before with large sheets of paper, leaving him no choice but to ask, “…Are you going to let me in?”
“The door’s open. The dayshift guys still haven’t gotten used to opening it since Nick broke the doorknob off the door last week after that case with the missing toddler`.”
“Nick broke the doorknob off?” He frowns at the doorknob as he wiggles and jiggles it a moment. It rattles around in the socket aimlessly. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Finally getting the door open, Grissom only sticks his head in before he opens it all the way. Greg’s sitting at the end of the bench in front of him, holding his head in his hands, resting his elbows on his knees. One leg of his jeans is ripped straight up to the knee, and a gash that spans the length looks like it’s what’s keeping Greg from changing his clothes. He wants to tell Greg to get it looked at and cleaned up to steer clear of infection, but he fears changing the subject won’t help very much.
“He said he was going to call it in and pay for it himself, but nobody’s shown up,” Greg says after a moment. Grissom still doesn’t interject. After a glance towards his supervisor, Greg mutters under his breath, “I’m not sure if that means that he has called someone or if he hasn’t.”
A little afraid of getting too involved in Greg’s troubles, whatever they may be, Grissom closes the door behind him and points back towards it over his shoulder. “Dayshift’s here.”
Greg groans. “I know. I need a moment.”
“You can’t get a moment at home?” Grissom asks, as politely as he can-but it seems to set Greg off again.
“I can’t get a moment anywhere! I-It’s like.” He sighs, sits up straight. When he turns to Grissom, he looks him dead in the eye and says, “I can’t get a moment of peace. Ever. Not at home, and definitely not here.”
Grissom frowns. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“You mean you haven’t noticed that you keep sending me on crap cases? Trash runs, for example? I’m pretty sure we’ve had, what, six of those in the last week and I’ve been on every one of them.”
He tries not to let the amusement show. “There were ten, Greg. I sent a swing CSI filling in for Catherine out on the others.”
Greg just snorts and shakes his head. “It’s not just that. Ecklie keeps putting me back in the lab. I’m not even sure how many times he’s asked me to cover for Wendy since she said she wanted more field experience. And that incompetent DNA tech on dayshift that processes so slow it’s like he’s waiting for the samples to grow jaws and just tell him who the killer is? Oh, and what about when I actually do find myself on a real case, and whenever I find something, people are generally out of the room or they just throw it off to good luck? I don’t even get thanked-or asked anymore, people just walk up to me and say, “Hey, Greg, it’d be great if you could take my shift on Thursday, I have a wedding I have to be at, or, Oh, goody, you’re off work, that means you can take over so I can go drinking.”
“Have you tried-“
But he keeps on going. “And, I’m pretty sure that the chicken place I have to go to for lunch because somebody keeps stealing mine has been cheating me out of money, because every time I go, the prices get higher and higher. My neighbor has been complaining about sneezing every time she walks in the hallway because she thinks I’ve gotten a cat, which I haven’t, that bastard down the hall has, so she’s been pinning notices on my door threatening to tell the landlord about the cat I don’t have, and Catherine’s started yelling at me on crime scenes for things like accidently messing up the coffee order I voluntarily called in when she called me in, or talking to Vartann or Brass about what’s going on, or taking thirty seconds to put on gloves before I enter a room-and at home!” He laughs exasperatedly. “I don’t even-“
He laughs, griping at his hair. This time, when he makes eye contact with Grissom, he looks like he’s trying hard not to cry. “I haven’t been able to keep a goldfish alive in a year and a half, my mother’s calling me at least once a day to update me on my father’s golfing score, and Nick-God, Nick has even more problems than I do.”
Idly, Grissom wonders what Nick has to do with Greg’s home life, but he pushes that to the back of his mind, instead asking, “Have you filed complaints with anyone about the treatment from your supervisors?”
Greg lifts his head incredulously. “You’re asking if I’ve told on you?”
He shrugs. “Evidently, I’ve been treating you unfairly. If I need to be assessed, then I suppose that I need to be assessed. It’s not telling if it’s true.”
A blink. “Are you asking me to tell on you?”
“No, Greg. I’m saying that if you have a problem with me, you shouldn’t let it go unannounced.” He pauses, watching Greg’s face change from emotion to emotion while he processes Grissom’s words. “It’s unhealthy.”
He laughs, a bitter laugh that almost pains Grissom to hear it. It’s nothing like the sort of laughter Grissom’s used to hearing from the man. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s the why I’m in such a rut. God, I can’t even keep my relationship afloat.”
Grissom doesn’t ask, afraid to pry-besides, he doesn’t really want to know-but Greg keeps going anyway. Eyeing the bench, Grissom begins to wonder if he needs to sit down. “I’ve broken up with the same guy six times in the last three months, and we’ve gotten back together seven times. I mean, yeah, things change, but let’s be honest, how much can a person change in three months? For that matter, how much can his family change in three months? I mean, there is so much working against us, I don’t-“ He stops, shakes his head and stands up from the bench. “Sorry, you really don’t need to hear about the problems in my love life.”
“Oh, no, no,” Grissom says, shaking his head. “Please, get it out. It may lighten the mood for the rest of us to know that even those as optimistic as you find yourself in slumps sometimes.” Greg ‘ha’s, but doesn’t say anything. “Still, Greg… It would make me feel much better if you would see a psychologist about these things.”
“I’m already seeing a psychologist. I work in a crime lab, it’s sort of hard not to,” Greg says, emphasizing his words by slamming his locker open.
While he ponders his next move, Grissom moves his gaze from Greg to his open locker. It’s been a while since he’s stepped foot in the locker room, and even longer since he’s had this sort of conversation with Greg, but he distinctly remembers Greg’s locker much barer than it is now. Photos plaster the upper half of his locker door, overlapping corners and bending sides to fit in. He squints to get a better look. Many of them are photos of people he doesn’t know with Greg, and a few of the team, but above all, Nick appears far more often than any of the others. If Grissom recalls correctly, he’s even in a photo with Greg and his parents.
Oh. That’s what Nick has to do with Greg’s home life.
Grissom bring his attention back to Greg, who’s digging through the bottom of his locker and frowning. He tries to sound nonchalant, unsurprised, when he says, “Have you tried talking to Nick about this?”
“Nick?” Greg asks immediately, turning to Grissom with a light blush on his face Grissom was sure wasn’t there moments ago. “Why would I talk to Nick about this?”
“The two of you live together, don’t you? Shouldn’t someone so important in your life be allowed to know these sorts of things?”
Looking as though he still wants to argue the point, Greg opens and closes his mouth a few times, making frustrated expressions as he does it. Finally, he settles on, “Well, yeah. But, he isn’t always the easiest to talk to when it comes to problems at work. You know he complained about the last new transfer we had? I swear, for like, three weeks I couldn’t go home without hearing about her and how unorganized she was and how it took her twice as long to get results back to him.”
“And he never complained about her formally?”
Greg rubs roughly at his eyes with his palms and says, in a voice with only barely concealing emotion, “He doesn’t like to be the reason people lose their jobs.”
“He wouldn’t have been,” Grissom tells him. “She would have lost her job because she couldn’t keep up with the pace. You kept up with the pace. We never heard complaints or shortcomings from you when you were our DNA technician.”
Greg’s sudden change in posture suggests some amount of surprise to Grissom. “Thanks,” he says finally. “I haven’t heard work-related compliments in a while.”
Grissom raises an eyebrow. He still hasn’t moved, and he can hear more voices from the hallway behind him. “I don’t see why not.” With a short of shrug, Greg stands up with a sigh and returns to his locker.
“I don’t know why I haven’t just transferred out yet,” Greg mutters, swearing under his breath as he drops something in his locker.
Despite knowing that he’s not supposed to have an answer to that, Grissom still does. “You’re obviously getting something here that you wouldn’t anywhere else. You know, Greg…” He waits until Greg glances his way. “We accept the love that we think we deserve.”
“Now you’re saying that I basically hate myself.”
Shrugging, Grissom grips the doorknob behind him. “You have to decide that for yourself.”
Greg hums in response, and Grissom turns to open the door, wiggling and jiggling like he remembers Greg told him.
“Just-let me do that.” Greg takes the doorknob out of Grissom’s hand and lifts up harshly, pushing it back towards the frame and opening it. “A sign might be helpful.”
“A new doorknob might be as well.” Grissom says, leaving the room and turning back to Greg amidst the dayshift CSIs. “Thank you, Greg.”
His face almost lights up. “You’re welcome.”
Again, Grissom turns away, only to look back and say, “You should talk to him about these things.”
Greg frowns a bit, cocking his head the littlest amount before he nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I probably should.”
With the dayshift employees watching the two of them with confused expressions, Grissom heads back towards his office. A few of the dayshifters try to entice gossip out of him, but he waves them all away with his hand, continuing back to the comforting confines of his office.
He’s only just settling back down to finish his paperwork when he sees Greg pass by his open office door. Without a word, he stops just outside for a moment… but doesn’t look towards Grissom at all. In fact, Grissom only vaguely knows that he’s standing there. Slowly but surely, Greg’s sneakers finally start to squeak-squeak as he continues down the hall.
And if Grissom’s ears aren’t deceiving him, when some of the lab techs say hello to them, there’s a new tone to Greg’s responding voice that Grissom realizes he hasn’t heard from Greg in a long time.
Hope.
/end