Without Windows or Doors: Chapter 12
Title: Without Windows Or Doors: Chapter 12
Author: laurelgardner
Rating: R for language
Pairing: Gil/Nick
Summary: Comfort fic, post Grave Danger. Gil and Nick go camping. Really.
Author's Note/Warnings: SPOILERS. And slowness.
Disclaimer: No attempt at copyright claims are being made.
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5
Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11
"So," said Gil, as they drove to the visitors' center," if you're not fragile, what are you?"
Nick, who'd been staring rather blankly out the window for the first several minutes of the journey, seemed to awaken from a trance at the sound of Gil's voice.
"Huh?"
Gil smiled patiently.
"You said you were, 'a lot of things,' but not fragile," he reminded Nick. "So what are you?"
Nick stared.
"Angry?" Gil suggested. "Depressed? Crazy?"
"Crazy," mused Nick. "You know, I've seriously considered going crazy."
Gil nodded. "Oh yes?" he said. "Is this a new idea, or is it something we're revisiting?"
Nick hesitated. "Revisiting," he said quietly.
"Uh-huh," said Gil, unsurprised.
"I don't know," Nick continued. "I think it would be a huge relief to just...let go, you know?"
"I do," said Gil.
"Because it's funny, but it's the day-to-day shit that really gets to you, that just...drags you down. It would be really nice, I think," he added, "to just let go of it for a while. Let someone else be in charge."
"Of your life?"
Nick shifted a little, embarrassed. "Yeah, I know," he said. "Not such a good idea."
"No," said Gil. "I can see the appeal. Really. But that sort of thing comes with a price. You know that."
"Yeah," said Nick. "People don't forget."
"No," Gil agreed. "They don't."
Nick sighed.
"Douglas Adams once wrote," Gil told him, "that there's no point in driving yourself crazy to stop yourself from going mad. So the best plan is to just give up and save your sanity for later."
Nick laughed. "Wait...what the hell does that mean?"
"I'm not sure," Gil said, with a shrug. "I think it means you don't have to worry so much. About unimportant things, I mean. Let the details take care of themselves, at least for a while."
"Can't really do that in our line of work," Nick argued.
"You can for the next month," said Gil.
Nick chuckled quietly. "Yeah," he said, "I guess that's true."
Gil smiled behind his sunglasses.
"Here we are."
They'd arrived at the visitor's center. It was larger than Gil had been expecting, made up of several buildings. They killed a good forty-five minutes inside, reading the various historical placards, gathering maps, and familiarizing themselves with everything the park had to offer in terms of recreation - which turned out to be a lot more than just hiking and wading. Gil found a bird-watcher's guide to the park, listing some 290 species. He snatched up a copy, found Nick and presented it to him. He was immediately rewarded with surprised smile of pure delight. It was wonderful to see.
They decided they would take the Taylor Creek trail today. It was on the longish side, but scenic and not particularly strenuous.
They took very little with them from the Denali; just water and a few emergency supplies. Try as he might, though, Gil was unable to grab the bee sting kit he'd packed without Nick noticing, so he finally had to bite the bullet and transfer the kit to his pack in plain sight. He did his best to be nonchalant about it, and Nick said nothing, but Gil could sense his discomfort, palpable as moisture on a humid day.
Damn. Well, there wasn't anything he could do about that, and he was not about to take any risks where Nick's safety was concerned. Besides, lots of people carried bee sting kits with them on outdoor trips, or should do if they didn't. Nick had to know he could count on an entomologist to be extra cautious when it came to such matters, didn't he?
It had nothing to do with anyone being...fragile.
The trail they took was quite beautiful. Predictably so, perhaps, but they weren't exactly looking for surprises on this trip, were they? They'd had quite enough of those without looking for them.
They talked freely and casually as they hiked, topics ranging from the latest summer movies (which neither of them had seen), to peculiarities of the local wildlife (Gil whined loudly about the fact that he hadn't been able to get a bug checklist from the visitors' center, which made Nick laugh), to the coolest expensive shit they'd seen in their latest forensics catalogues.
At one point, Nick asked," So how come you don't do this anymore?"
"Do what?"
"I don't know...vacations and stuff. You said you haven't camped since Minnesota."
"Oh," said Gil, "Well, when I camped out there, it wasn't strictly for fun, really. I'd go during deer hunting season in order to study blood patterns on snow."
Nick stared incredulously. "Blood patterns on snow," he repeated.
"Yes," said Gil, perplexed somewhat by Nick's reaction.
"So what did you do, just find a bunch of hunters and follow them around?" Nick asked.
"Yes," said Gil.
"And did you tell them why you were doing this?"
Gil thought for a moment.
"I think so," he said. "Most of the time."
Nick continued to stare.
"What?"
Nick laughed. "You know," he said, "I think I'm finally starting to get you." He stopped walking and leaned casually against the trunk of a tree.
Gil stopped, too. "'Get' me?"
"Yeah," said Nick. "You're just a big nerd, aren't you?" He slapped Gil's chest with the back of his hand.
There was nothing but affection in the pronouncement; not a trace of mockery. But still, it made Gil squirm to hear it, and he couldn't say why.
"Well," Gil muttered. "Aren't we all?"
Nick grinned. "Yeah," he said.
And then he looked at Gil in the strangest way, a peculiar sort of distance in those still-smiling eyes. Gil suddenly had the unexplainable sense that Nick was about to touch him, or that he wanted to, and some hidden, wild part of him hoped he would.
He didn't, though. He just said, softly, "Thanks for doing this."
Awkwardly, Gil shook his head. "It's nothing," he said. "I wanted to..." He swallowed. "Look, let's not stop here. We're not far from the bluff, and the view's gonna be great."
"Okay," said Nick. And just like that, the moment was broken.
* * * *
The next day, it rained. Hard.
The tent, of course, was waterproof, and though Nick feared for the state of the floor, it remained dry. But dry or not, it still didn't solve the larger problem of what the hell they were going to do with their day. They'd slept until nearly lunchtime, which helped matters, but the rest of the day still lay stretched out before them with the rain showing no signs of abating.
"Why don't we drive into town for lunch?" Gil suggested. "Maybe we can kill some time there afterward."
"It's a good idea," said Nick, "But I dunno how much we'll find to do in Regal, Utah."
"You know, Nick, people did find ways to keep busy during the rain before the electronic age," said Gil.
Nick laughed. "They didn't have as much fun, though."
"Well," said Gil, "we can always fall back on the ancient Native American tradition of watching DVDs on our laptop computer."
And with that, it was decided. Once in town, they found a raucous but thoroughly charming bar and grill that served them large, disgustingly good hamburgers.
"We can’t print it on the menu, ‘cause it offends some people," the waitress told them, "but around here, they’re called ‘Jesus Burgers.’"
"Oh really?" said Nick. "Why’s that?"
"’Cause people bite into them, and then say, ‘Jesus!’"
Nick bit into his.
"Wow," he said. "Jesus."
Gil chuckled from across the booth.
"What?" Nick demanded.
"Nothing," he said, still smiling.
The video rental store, which doubled as the local tanning salon, was a fair sight more disappointing. Nick didn’t know whether the place had just been milked due to the rainy day, or if their selection was just that crappy to begin with, but they had zilch to chose from as far as DVDs went. After searching for a good five minutes, the best he could come up with was the first movie of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (full screen, and minus the nifty extra scenes), and the special features disk to Gladiator - apparently, this particular establishment saw nothing strange about renting them separately.
But then, from the next aisle over, Gil made an excited noise.
"Here we go," he said, waving a copy of Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life high enough for Nick to see it.
Nick nodded his approval. "Sounds good." It wasn’t his favorite as far as Monty Python stuff went - he’d take Life of Brian or some quality sketch collections over that one any day, but it was obviously their best option. Besides, Gil looked like he was about to wet himself, he was so pleased.
They bummed around Regal for a while, but as Nick predicted there wasn’t much to do. So by mid-afternoon, they found themselves back at their tent, laptop and DVD in hand. Now that he was faced with it, the prospect of doing nothing for the rest of the day seemed quite pleasant. He was more tired from all the walking than he would have thought, and he thought perhaps a long nap was in order. Maybe the rain would clear up by the evening.
Well...not that he was likely to fall asleep when Gil was laughing like that. Clearly, this was one of his favorites, or it would seem to be by the way he kept busting his gut at nearly every single bizarre, off-kilter joke.
Nick relaxed and sat back, chuckling quietly. He was more amused by Gil than the movie itself, actually. He couldn't remember ever having gotten a chance to see what Grissom looked like when he laughed, or what sorts of things made him laugh. Song and dance numbers about sperm did the trick, apparently, as well as games of "Find the Fish."
Nick wished Gil wouldn't try to explain the philosophy references to him right now, he really wasn't all that interested at the moment...
"...live organ transplants," the narrator was saying, and Gil shut up about Schopenhauer. Apparently this was one of his favorites.
"Hello...what's this, then?" asked John Cleese of the strange, Jewish-Rastafarian character they'd managed to corner in his own home.
"A liver donor's card," the man answered nervously.
"Need we say more?"
"No! Listen, I can't give it to you now - it says, 'in the event of death'!"
"Nobody's ever had their liver taken out by us and survived."
"Lie there, sir. It won't take a minute."
The camera angle changed, then, shifting to show the audience the man's point of view as the surgeons cut him open. Graham Chapman was sprayed in the face, gratuitous amounts of fake-looking blood staining him in unnatural splatter patterns.
Something niggled at the corner of Nick's memory, something...not pleasant.
It's a damn shame they didn't get to him sooner.
Do you think he suffered?
Al and David...the autopsy room...he couldn't find a context for the images that flashed through his mind, but they filled him with a cold terror. He couldn't even hear the banter between the surgeons and the housewife in drag. He watched them cut with the ridiculous, toothy handsaw, watched as the man's liver was removed before his very eyes.
And then Nick remembered everything.
His stomach lurched. He felt a swelling sensation in his tongue and knew what was coming next.
"I have to..." he said, scrambling to his feet,"...gonna -"
He couldn't explain any further than that. He scrambled to make it out of the tent before it was too late. He fumbled with the door zipper, stumbled, then collapsed in the mud and retched.
He had only broken memories of his last few minutes in that box. The rest of the time he remembered all too clearly, but in the end, fear, pain, and spiking adrenaline had robbed him of sanity. He remembered the fan stopping. He remembered the sweet, unbearable relief of hearing Warrick's voice above him. He remembered the press of steel below his chin, but he did not remember raising his gun. And he remembered the moment when his friends had seemingly abandoned him, but all else after that was a blur until the moment Gil had called him by his father's nickname.
He’d forgotten his hallucination as well, and remembering that made it all real again.
He won't be needing this anymore.
How did my son die?
COD was asphyxiation. Death within minutes with no disfiguring physical findings.
He'll look great at the funeral.
Nick coughed as he vomited, rain running into his already watering eyes. He was dizzy, crouched on his hands and knees, dangerously close to losing even that balance. An emotional flashback, one like he hadn’t had in weeks, hit him full force as he gasped for air. As if the memory itself wasn’t bad enough, it brought everything from the surrounding minutes with it, brutally visceral, the way a smell brings you back. His heart pounded in his ears, deafening. He remembered the terror, the pain, the desperate helplessness of that moment. He tried to lift his hands, but they were useless, covered in muck, and he started to sway, to fall…
Steady arms caught and held him.
He must have made some noise of protest, must have tried to pull away, because Grissom held him more tightly. He was kneeling in the mud next to Nick, ruining his jeans and getting just as filthy as Nick was, but he didn’t seem to care.
"Easy, Nick," he was saying, "Easy." Half-holding Nick against his chest with one arm, he reached up with the other and wiped Nick’s face with a clean towel. It was a little damp from the rain, but that was all right. "Are you okay?"
Nick’s addled brain registered the faint note of panic in Gil’s voice. It sobered him a little. Grissom would, of course, have no idea why Nick was puking his guts out. He probably wanted to make sure they didn’t need to run him to the nearest emergency room.
Nick wanted to say that he was okay, at least in the sense that Gil meant it, that he wasn’t dying. But when he tried to speak, he choked on a sob.
"Oh," said Gil, comprehending. "Oh, Nicky…" There was confusion in Gil’s voice, still, but concern overwhelmed it. "Here…c’mon."
He pulled Nick to his feet, handing him the towel, helping him wipe his shaking hands as best he could. Nick was crying now, unable to stop it, but Grissom paid no heed to it, guiding him into the dry tent, making him sit. The movie had been turned off, Nick noticed.
Gil brought him a bottle of water. "Here…sip," he ordered, holding it to Nick’s lips. "Rinse." He helped Nick lean out of the open tent door. "Spit." Nick did as he was told, though he was still far from calm. Why couldn’t he stop crying?
Grissom’s hand was still on his back, hadn’t moved since the whole thing started. "What is it, Nick?"
It didn’t even occur to Nick that he didn’t have to tell the truth. He heard himself stammering, "I saw my own autopsy."
Gil stared in confusion. "What are you talking about, Nick?"
"Before you found me," Nick sobbed, "right before you found me."
Gil’s eyes were blank for a moment, then he seemed to put it together. "You hallucinated," he guessed. "Is that what happened?"
Clasping Gil’s shoulder, Nick nodded as best he could. "Looked just like…" he laughed desperately, "fucking…guy getting his fucking liver cut out..." The laugh turned into a whimper again. "Looked just like it."
"Why didn’t you tell me?" Gil asked.
"I - I just remembered."
Gil blinked, then with a sigh, he pulled Nick close. Now Nick was getting mud on his shirt as well, mud and mucus and who knew what else, but if Gil noticed, again he didn’t seem concerned. Nick pressed his face into Gil’s chest, sobbing uncontrollably.
"Shh."
"I was gonna die, Grissom," he murmured. "Oh, god…I was gonna die."
"Shh, Nicky. It’s okay. It’s okay."
Solid hands stroked his back. Nick just tried to breathe, inhaling the smell of warm, wet cotton.
Outside, the rain pelted against the tent.