Fic: Between The Covers, Chapter 2 (CSI, Nick Stokes / Greg Sanders)
Title: Between The Covers, Chapter 2
Pairing: Nick Stokes / Greg Sanders
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, etc.
Feedback: Always Welcome
Notes: Set after season seven. Contains references to seasons 1-7.
CSI Las Vegas Main List
Chapter 1
Nick made it all the way to the parking lot, before his cellphone rang. He let out a deep sigh, and flipped it open.
“Stokes.”
“Nicky? Guess who’s back…”
“Greg? Where are you?”
“At the airport cafeteria, the airline coffee is a joke… My flight just landed twenty minutes ago. I thought I should check if you got time to pick me up before I get a cab.”
“Sure, but couldn’t you ask me before the flight?”
“I didn’t know the whole flight would be so late. I checked my watch, and your shift was conveniently over…”
“How did you know I was working?”
“I didn’t.” Greg admitted and chuckled cheerfully. “I just wanted to try my luck. When are you coming?”
“You haven’t even asked me to pick you up yet?”
“You’re coming, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but it would be polite to ask.”
“Why? Because you might have a hot date at nine AM?”
“I could have been sleeping-”
“Are you coming or not?”
“I’m coming.”
“Your car or a lab car?”
“Mine, why?”
“I need to know how long it will take you to get here, and your own car is a piece of crap. I need to decide between a ham sandwich or a really suspicious pudding.”
“What does that have to do with my car?”
“Pudding’s faster to eat than a sandwich so I’ll be done by the time you get here. If you come on your own car, I’ll have extra ten minutes, even if there traffic is bad. And I don’t even need to take my sixth cup of coffee in a take-away cup!”
“Your sixth cup?”
“Is it showing?”
“With you it’s hard to say…”
“By the way, how’s your back?”
“It’s… behind me. Why?”
“I got some heavy lifting for you when you get here, and since you’re such an old fashioned gentleman, you’ll of course wanna be all useful and manly. Wait, wait…”
“Greg-”
“They just brought a new batch of doughnuts, I gotta go. When I got in all the chocolates doughnuts were already gone.”
“Greg, are you even listening-”
“I need some more coffee too, my cups too empty, I can’t dip doughnuts in that-”
“Greg!”
“See you when you get here, and get some coffee on the way for the drive, you know how I like it.”
Greg hung up before Nick’s brain could catch up with his rapid-fire delivery. Nick pocketed his phone and got into his car. In the back of his mind he kept telling himself he might do some heavy lifting for Greg, but he would not encourage the caffeine junkie’s habit.
His resolution lasted twelve minutes.
------------------------------------
Greg had disappeared somewhere around the time Nick had managed to drag the heavy cardboard box into the elevator. He lifted the box outside the apartment door and waited. Few minutes later Greg bounced up the stairs carrying a thick pile of mail and dragging two heavy bags behind him.
“Where did you go?”
“Mrs. Lawson downstairs got my mail for me, and I brought him a manatee keychain from the San Francisco Aquarium.”
“She picked up your mail for four months and all you got for her was a keychain?”
“That was what she asked me to bring.” Greg shrugged and dug his keys from his pocket. “Last stretch.” He opened the door, leaving Nick to drag the box into the apartment.
“What the hell do you have in here?” Nick gasped as he let go of it and leaned against the wall. “Rocks or illegal immigrants?”
“Souvenirs, I’ll show you those later. It’s a surprise. Any idea how much extra I had to pay to get it into the plane?”
“I have a pretty good idea, you told me that on the way here. Three times.”
“Great, then you know you should be grateful I went through all that trouble.” Greg dumped his mail on the kitchen counter and checked the content of his fridge. “I gotta go grocery shopping soon.”
“I hope that place is good for you, because I’m not lifting that thing again.”
“It’s fine.” Greg crouched down to rummage through his bags. “And laundry, I gotta do some laundry too. My shirt could make scenthounds go blind…” He picked up the bags, but remembered to late he had just opened them. A cascade of dirty clothes took over most of the kitchen floor. “I think I’m jet lagging a lot more than I thought.”
Nick crouched down on his knees to help him collect the clothes. He picked up a crumpled T-shirt and something fell down from inside it. It turned out to be a much used notebook, with several small notes and pieces of paper sticking out.
“Did you keep a travel diary or something?”
“No.” Greg took the book from him and ran his fingertips tenderly over the edge of the cover. “I wrote this before I left. It was part of my therapy.”
“Therapy?” Nick was almost sure he knew what Greg meant, but he wanted to hear it from the man himself.
“After the beating. And during the trial. My therapist said I should unload everything about my life. It’s easier to understand things when you have to focus and write them all down.”
“Did it help?”
“Yeah.” Greg nodded. “Good thing I didn’t take the other alternative. She told me to choose between this and finger-painting.”
“That’s good.” Nick chuckled. “Are you still writing that?”
“No. No, not anymore. I got every little thing here, my whole life in Vegas.”
“Why didn’t I get a therapist like that? Mine wanted to close me into a small, dark closet and keep me there till I started hyperventilating.”
“Did he really do that?”
“Just once. The department shrink was sick, and they got someone to cover for him.”
“Are you sure he was a real shrink?”
“I’m not sure, but he had the same kind of little beard that Freud had.”
“Well, mine was a lot better.” Greg clutched the book against his chest. “She had a lot of good guidelines.”
“Like what?”
“Like… no one is obliged to forgive and forget if he doesn’t want to do it.”
“I’m not sure what that means.”
“Basically it means I would have probably taken the whole beating and all the other stuff better if I hadn’t kept so much aggressions inside. According Marcy I got issues with confrontations and expressing anger. She said I have a subconscious need to avoid them so people would like me.”
“She might be on to something.”
“Yeah, and she had something to say about you too.”
“Me?”
“She said that I should make the situation clear to you and demand some kind of closure. After seven years that sounds reasonable to me.”
“I don’t know what you-”
“Last and only chance, Nicky.” Greg pressed his palm against Nick’s chest and pushed him gently against the wall. He leaned forward before the Texan had a chance to escape and kissed him.
Nick was reasonably sure he temporarily blacked out. When he returned to reality, he had Greg pressed against the kitchen counter and his fingers were quickly unbuttoning the man’s shirt. Greg didn’t seem to mind, his hands had found Nick’s butt, groping him shamelessly through the course denim.
“Tell me you’re not going to work today.” Greg demanded and let go of Nick’s lips long enough for him to answer.
“I got the night off, but-”
“Good, you got seven years to make up to me.”
“Greg…” Nick pulled away a bit, but it didn’t seem to make his head work any better. “We don’t need to hurry or-”
“If we go with your speed it’ll take another seven years to get anywhere. Therefore, I’ll take charge of the proceedings, like it or not.” Greg leaned against him again and glanced down. “And obviously you do like it.”
“Greg, it’s not that I don’t want to-”
“I can feel that.”
“-but I was working last night, I’m exhausted and you’re buzzed on caffeine and jet lagging. Is that how you want our first time-”
“I let you keep flirting with me for years without any kinda reward, so you don’t have much to say about it. Just do what mommy always said: Close your eyes and think of Texas.”
Chapter 3