the start of a journey
Title: As it Became Dusk (Prologue/?)
Pairing: Greg/Nick
Rating: R/NC-17? (for disturbing themes)
Summary: There are two of them on this journey. It might be easier if they're actually living in the same State.
Warnings/Dislaimers/Spoilers: Futurefic. Warning for themes of disability, accidents, and violence.
Note: Continuation of 'In Search of Light'. May contain medical inaccuracies in the latter stages of the fic, although I did try my best to research it. I'm relying on charities of strangers, now. Please tell me if there's something not quite right with either characterizations, syntax, or any other things. Comments and criticisms are very much appreciated.
Very special thank you to mywheezy and 0creativity for going through the story and making it infinitely better. Both of you are gems of the highest carat! *g*
---
Greg stalks around the crime scene, having quartered the warehouse between himself, Warrick, and two day-shift CSIs whose names he hasn't a care to find out. A young, over-eager uniform -- Blake, Greg notes in disdain -- gestures for him to follow. "I found something you might find interesting," he says. Greg follows the uniform to a corner. He trusts his legs to do the walking for him, trusts his brain to not think too much. Truth is, there's not a lot that can interest Greg these days, not after the burglary. If he thinks hard enough, he can still see the perp, with a huge gash across his head, bright red blood draining away. If he squeezes his eyes hard enough, he's convinced that he'll see Nick, trembling wildly in his arms. He can still see the shape of desperation, forever branded against the inside of his eyelids, the feeling of frozen blood, and coagulating nightmares in his sleep.
"Here it is," Blake tells him. Greg affords a smile and nods, already clicking away on his camera.
"Anything I can do?" Blake asks.
"You're new, aren't you?" Greg asks. No point in asking, really. He's just aimlessly making chitchat in a desperate attempt to use every last one of brain cells; to use every measure to keep him from thinking too much. He blinks, trying to find a good angle to take more pictures.
"Yeah." A fucking bundle of excitement, Greg thinks. "I... I wanna be a CSI one day, you know." Bad fucking idea, kiddo, Greg wants to tell him but wills himself to shut up.
"You can go, thanks." Greg lifts his head just in time to see Blake sidestep into a stack of crates.
Greg thinks he might have winced as Blake's hand hits the nearest crate. He watches with morbid fascination as it falls. That crate is soon followed by other crates, falling like a goddamned house of cards. Greg sees flashbacks of Nick on the floor covered in tears, snot, and blood (not his, Greg tries to tell himself). Greg sees flashbacks of Mrs Zimmerman bonelessly sprawled against the far wall, face ghostly white and slack. Then, there's the nearly-dead perp twitching, lying a hand's span away from Nick.
Everything turns a shade of red. He lets out a growl, one that resonates from the base of his throat. He lunges at Blake, pinning the other man against the wall. He thinks that he's about to let fly a punch at the visibly cowering man. He wants to rip somebody's face away, he wants to find the heart and feel it beating in his hands; to see blood dripping off his fingers onto the floor. He wants to hear a scream that will shatter his eardrum, and he wants to scream until his throat shatters. Then there is a hand around his wrist and Warrick's voice in his ears. There are fingers prying his fingers off the lapels he grips so tightly. "He..." Greg tries to reason.
Someone hauls him off the ground, he feels his feet leave the concrete below him. Someone half-carries, half-drags him across the room, toward the front of the building. "Let me go," Greg whispers. Let me wake up, please let me wake up. But no one has the ear to listen to his pleas -- his voice not loud enough, their ears not sharp enough. He listens to the scuffle; he can feel eyes on him, he can feel the tears that burn his eyeballs evaporate when sunlight hits his face.
There is a gust of wind against his face and he cringes. He turns his head down and lifts a hand to cover his face. The arms underneath his armpits loosen and he feels himself sliding down onto warm asphalt beneath him. The scene around him shimmers, and he can only sigh. "He fucked up the crime scene, 'Rick," Greg pushes the words out of his gritted teeth only to find out that it is an exercise that drains most of his energy. He hangs his head and waits for... for what?
"Go home, Greg."
"I... can't," Greg says. He wants Warrick to understand, wants to tell everybody who wants to listen and hopes futilely for them to understand when he himself can't. He only knows that going home means going back to what was a crime scene -- only recently cleared -- where Greg can still find fingerprint powder to clean. Their home, or what used to be their home -- An empty shell of a hope. It isn't a home anymore, not by any stretch of the imagination. It is a hope that is no longer there. Nick is going to live with his parents. Greg needs to get the paperwork in order, and Nick can be on his way to his parents'. Nick will have to retrace his steps, recouping what he has gained since the car crash but lost when the burglar invaded their home.
"You need to. Go home, get some sleep," Warrick's face comes into view and Greg forces a smile.
"What about..." Greg points to the general direction of his quarter of the warehouse.
"Don't worry 'bout it," Warrick tells him, placing a hand on Greg's shoulders. "I'll call Ben in." Warrick stands up and offers his hand. "You might as well go home. Or you can go pick Nick up from his therapy." Nothing is the same anymore. He'll have to call Clara and tell her she can have the day off, tell her she doesn't have to drive up to the hospital to collect Nick.
And Ben. Benjamin Warner. A transferee from Dallas, who they hired when they found out that Nick's car crash injuries were too severe. Greg can't get over the irony. Ben, in the job left by Nick.
---
It was seven days after the car crash when Grissom pulled Greg aside. "How's Nick?" And Greg fiddled with pipettes and papers and lab equipments, trying to avoid looking Grissom in the eye. "Greg?"
And Greg remembered the day when they let him in to see Nick; the way he walked down the rows of equally sick people with their equally anxious family and friends. Nick slept slathered under the tubes and wires. The beeps coming from Nick's machines competed from machines attached to different patients and Greg couldn't figure out whether they were soothing or grating to his nerves.
"Greg," Grissom tried again, placing a hand on a strung-out shoulder.
"Yeah?" Greg lifted a pipette and rolled it between his fingers. He noticed the small wear on the rubber and rubbed it lightly. "Heard you're hiring somebody."
"You know?" Grissom sounded surprised and Greg would have laughed if he weren't so tired. "I wanted to be the first one to tell you," Grissom said again.
"Well, too late. I bumped into the guy in the locker room. Ben somethingoranother." Greg shrugged. "He... Is he going to work here for long?"
"Just..." Grissom cleared his throat. "Just until Nick recovers. He'll have to pass physical..." And Greg blocked Grissom out and wanted very much to believe that Nick would genuinely recover.
"Okay." Greg nodded and pushed a box of latex gloves aside. He tapped the empty space on the table in front of him with his fingernail and held his breath. For what though, he didn't know.
"It's a slow day," Grissom's voice filtered through the haze and white noise in his head. "Why don't you take the day off and go visit Nick?" Grissom was issuing an order, and Greg was intelligent enough to know it -- know that Grissom would and could bar him from the Lab.
"He's going to be asleep anyway," Greg whispered dejectedly, a last ditch effort at a futile plea. "He's so tired lately." And Greg didn't know what to do. Sick people weren't quite his strong point. The nurses told him that he'd learn, the wife of the sick man sleeping next to Nick's bed told him that he'd cope. One day, they told him. Told him to expect to fall into an uneasy routine of hard work and prayer and Greg wondered how long he could do it before he himself would fall apart.
"Well, I'm sure he'll like waking up to you," Grissom patted Greg's back softly and pushed him to the direction of the door.
"I still have to... you know... waiting for news from Archie..." Greg waved his hands vaguely.
"I know," Grissom said indulgently, smiling softly. "I'm on the case too, remember? I'll take care of it." A small shove and Greg moved reluctantly toward the front of the building. "Go."
Greg stepped outside the door and was greeted by a setting sun. The dying rays painting the desert sky in red, magenta, and blood. There were small drizzles of rain, pressing dust onto asphalt. He stood in his spot, chin pressed into his chest and ignored the hey and hello from the people who passed him. He nodded distractedly when Warrick walked by him with a you a'ight? and Catherine's half-question, see you tomorrow?
The ride to the hospital was excruciatingly familiar as was the walk down the corridor leading to Nick's ward. "Nick?" Greg called. Silence greeted him, and small rustle from the lady sitting next to the other bed. She stirred and blinked owlishly at him and smiled wryly. Greg nodded and watched as the lady adjusted the cushion on her back and returned to slumber, head resting on the top of the chair and wrinkled hands pursed together.
Wake up, Greg whispered, I've got a lot of things to tell you. He shifted a chair closer to the bed and settled down on the cold surface. Wake up, Greg told himself, because he couldn't believe he could be awake and facing this. And if this really was a nightmare, then he's going to have words with the Dream Gods. The complaints department will definitely hear from me. But the cold under and around him felt real. Nick's unresponsive hand was heavy in Greg's palms.
A long and hard road of recovery was to follow, and Benjamin Warner was signed on as a permanent member of the Las Vegas Crime Lab.
---
He stops in front of the whitewashed door, in a whitewashed corridor, teeming with whitewashed people. For a while, he can only stare at a small scar on the wood - a grey blemish against pure white. He traces the line tentatively and makes a wish. For Nick, for himself, and for Mrs Zimmerman who is now seeing a psychiatrist three times a week. A small cough comes from behind him and he jumps sideways.
"Are you going to go in?" There's a nurse and a man in a wheelchair, and the nurse smiles at him patiently. He looks at the man who seems to be constantly shaking. The man smiles at him and extends a badly-trembling hand.
Greg reaches out, pats the hand lightly and smiles back, "No. Not really." He opens the door and steps aside to let the nurse wheel the man in. He catches a glimpse of Nick at the far side of the room, pale and straining, surrounded by the therapist and a male nurse. He turns away, trying to leave the room before Nick spots him.
"Mr Sanders?"
The therapist calls him and he turns around. He walks numbly to where Nick stands, trembling with exertion, with the nurse providing a steady support. He studies Nick's face, the pinched eyes and pursed lips. There's sweat and tears mingling on Nick's pale, gaunt face. Nick's fingers are wrapped around the bar, trying to steady himself.
He wants to tell Nick about his not-so-good day, about how he fucked up at the crime scene, and how he still bristles when he hears the name Ben Warner. He used to be able to talk through these things with Nick, used to be able to offload and talk things through, dig deep into Nick's well of knowledge and feel secure with the fact that Nick is there beside him.
And Nick is still here, beside him, just not how Greg envisioned it to be a few years ago. Not this Nick who strains to put one foot in front of the other, not this Nick whose muscles have withered into skin and bones. Nick, who had made progress only to have a stupid burglar barge into their borrowed time and rip them apart. Greg is at a tether's end, not knowing what to do, only to grip at reality a little harder, and pray a little louder.
"Are you okay, Mr Sanders?" The therapist has a soothing voice, Greg admits. Very therapist-like, he concludes. She leads him to a chair and sits him down in it, and presses a cup of water into his palms. "It's good that you can come. It will be a tremendous encouragement to Mr Stokes." Greg sips gingerly and sees Nick being lowered onto the mat, legs splayed out in front of him. "We're taking a five minutes break. Then there's another fifteen minutes, and Mr Stokes can go home." Greg watches the nurse gently massaging Nick's legs and hears Nick's tired and contented sigh.
"We're thinking of having Nick live with his parents for a while. What do I have to do in terms of paperwork?"
---
Pairing: Greg/Nick
Rating: R/NC-17? (for disturbing themes)
Summary: There are two of them on this journey. It might be easier if they're actually living in the same State.
Warnings/Dislaimers/Spoilers: Futurefic. Warning for themes of disability, accidents, and violence.
Note: Continuation of 'In Search of Light'. May contain medical inaccuracies in the latter stages of the fic, although I did try my best to research it. I'm relying on charities of strangers, now. Please tell me if there's something not quite right with either characterizations, syntax, or any other things. Comments and criticisms are very much appreciated.
Very special thank you to mywheezy and 0creativity for going through the story and making it infinitely better. Both of you are gems of the highest carat! *g*
---
Greg stalks around the crime scene, having quartered the warehouse between himself, Warrick, and two day-shift CSIs whose names he hasn't a care to find out. A young, over-eager uniform -- Blake, Greg notes in disdain -- gestures for him to follow. "I found something you might find interesting," he says. Greg follows the uniform to a corner. He trusts his legs to do the walking for him, trusts his brain to not think too much. Truth is, there's not a lot that can interest Greg these days, not after the burglary. If he thinks hard enough, he can still see the perp, with a huge gash across his head, bright red blood draining away. If he squeezes his eyes hard enough, he's convinced that he'll see Nick, trembling wildly in his arms. He can still see the shape of desperation, forever branded against the inside of his eyelids, the feeling of frozen blood, and coagulating nightmares in his sleep.
"Here it is," Blake tells him. Greg affords a smile and nods, already clicking away on his camera.
"Anything I can do?" Blake asks.
"You're new, aren't you?" Greg asks. No point in asking, really. He's just aimlessly making chitchat in a desperate attempt to use every last one of brain cells; to use every measure to keep him from thinking too much. He blinks, trying to find a good angle to take more pictures.
"Yeah." A fucking bundle of excitement, Greg thinks. "I... I wanna be a CSI one day, you know." Bad fucking idea, kiddo, Greg wants to tell him but wills himself to shut up.
"You can go, thanks." Greg lifts his head just in time to see Blake sidestep into a stack of crates.
Greg thinks he might have winced as Blake's hand hits the nearest crate. He watches with morbid fascination as it falls. That crate is soon followed by other crates, falling like a goddamned house of cards. Greg sees flashbacks of Nick on the floor covered in tears, snot, and blood (not his, Greg tries to tell himself). Greg sees flashbacks of Mrs Zimmerman bonelessly sprawled against the far wall, face ghostly white and slack. Then, there's the nearly-dead perp twitching, lying a hand's span away from Nick.
Everything turns a shade of red. He lets out a growl, one that resonates from the base of his throat. He lunges at Blake, pinning the other man against the wall. He thinks that he's about to let fly a punch at the visibly cowering man. He wants to rip somebody's face away, he wants to find the heart and feel it beating in his hands; to see blood dripping off his fingers onto the floor. He wants to hear a scream that will shatter his eardrum, and he wants to scream until his throat shatters. Then there is a hand around his wrist and Warrick's voice in his ears. There are fingers prying his fingers off the lapels he grips so tightly. "He..." Greg tries to reason.
Someone hauls him off the ground, he feels his feet leave the concrete below him. Someone half-carries, half-drags him across the room, toward the front of the building. "Let me go," Greg whispers. Let me wake up, please let me wake up. But no one has the ear to listen to his pleas -- his voice not loud enough, their ears not sharp enough. He listens to the scuffle; he can feel eyes on him, he can feel the tears that burn his eyeballs evaporate when sunlight hits his face.
There is a gust of wind against his face and he cringes. He turns his head down and lifts a hand to cover his face. The arms underneath his armpits loosen and he feels himself sliding down onto warm asphalt beneath him. The scene around him shimmers, and he can only sigh. "He fucked up the crime scene, 'Rick," Greg pushes the words out of his gritted teeth only to find out that it is an exercise that drains most of his energy. He hangs his head and waits for... for what?
"Go home, Greg."
"I... can't," Greg says. He wants Warrick to understand, wants to tell everybody who wants to listen and hopes futilely for them to understand when he himself can't. He only knows that going home means going back to what was a crime scene -- only recently cleared -- where Greg can still find fingerprint powder to clean. Their home, or what used to be their home -- An empty shell of a hope. It isn't a home anymore, not by any stretch of the imagination. It is a hope that is no longer there. Nick is going to live with his parents. Greg needs to get the paperwork in order, and Nick can be on his way to his parents'. Nick will have to retrace his steps, recouping what he has gained since the car crash but lost when the burglar invaded their home.
"You need to. Go home, get some sleep," Warrick's face comes into view and Greg forces a smile.
"What about..." Greg points to the general direction of his quarter of the warehouse.
"Don't worry 'bout it," Warrick tells him, placing a hand on Greg's shoulders. "I'll call Ben in." Warrick stands up and offers his hand. "You might as well go home. Or you can go pick Nick up from his therapy." Nothing is the same anymore. He'll have to call Clara and tell her she can have the day off, tell her she doesn't have to drive up to the hospital to collect Nick.
And Ben. Benjamin Warner. A transferee from Dallas, who they hired when they found out that Nick's car crash injuries were too severe. Greg can't get over the irony. Ben, in the job left by Nick.
---
It was seven days after the car crash when Grissom pulled Greg aside. "How's Nick?" And Greg fiddled with pipettes and papers and lab equipments, trying to avoid looking Grissom in the eye. "Greg?"
And Greg remembered the day when they let him in to see Nick; the way he walked down the rows of equally sick people with their equally anxious family and friends. Nick slept slathered under the tubes and wires. The beeps coming from Nick's machines competed from machines attached to different patients and Greg couldn't figure out whether they were soothing or grating to his nerves.
"Greg," Grissom tried again, placing a hand on a strung-out shoulder.
"Yeah?" Greg lifted a pipette and rolled it between his fingers. He noticed the small wear on the rubber and rubbed it lightly. "Heard you're hiring somebody."
"You know?" Grissom sounded surprised and Greg would have laughed if he weren't so tired. "I wanted to be the first one to tell you," Grissom said again.
"Well, too late. I bumped into the guy in the locker room. Ben somethingoranother." Greg shrugged. "He... Is he going to work here for long?"
"Just..." Grissom cleared his throat. "Just until Nick recovers. He'll have to pass physical..." And Greg blocked Grissom out and wanted very much to believe that Nick would genuinely recover.
"Okay." Greg nodded and pushed a box of latex gloves aside. He tapped the empty space on the table in front of him with his fingernail and held his breath. For what though, he didn't know.
"It's a slow day," Grissom's voice filtered through the haze and white noise in his head. "Why don't you take the day off and go visit Nick?" Grissom was issuing an order, and Greg was intelligent enough to know it -- know that Grissom would and could bar him from the Lab.
"He's going to be asleep anyway," Greg whispered dejectedly, a last ditch effort at a futile plea. "He's so tired lately." And Greg didn't know what to do. Sick people weren't quite his strong point. The nurses told him that he'd learn, the wife of the sick man sleeping next to Nick's bed told him that he'd cope. One day, they told him. Told him to expect to fall into an uneasy routine of hard work and prayer and Greg wondered how long he could do it before he himself would fall apart.
"Well, I'm sure he'll like waking up to you," Grissom patted Greg's back softly and pushed him to the direction of the door.
"I still have to... you know... waiting for news from Archie..." Greg waved his hands vaguely.
"I know," Grissom said indulgently, smiling softly. "I'm on the case too, remember? I'll take care of it." A small shove and Greg moved reluctantly toward the front of the building. "Go."
Greg stepped outside the door and was greeted by a setting sun. The dying rays painting the desert sky in red, magenta, and blood. There were small drizzles of rain, pressing dust onto asphalt. He stood in his spot, chin pressed into his chest and ignored the hey and hello from the people who passed him. He nodded distractedly when Warrick walked by him with a you a'ight? and Catherine's half-question, see you tomorrow?
The ride to the hospital was excruciatingly familiar as was the walk down the corridor leading to Nick's ward. "Nick?" Greg called. Silence greeted him, and small rustle from the lady sitting next to the other bed. She stirred and blinked owlishly at him and smiled wryly. Greg nodded and watched as the lady adjusted the cushion on her back and returned to slumber, head resting on the top of the chair and wrinkled hands pursed together.
Wake up, Greg whispered, I've got a lot of things to tell you. He shifted a chair closer to the bed and settled down on the cold surface. Wake up, Greg told himself, because he couldn't believe he could be awake and facing this. And if this really was a nightmare, then he's going to have words with the Dream Gods. The complaints department will definitely hear from me. But the cold under and around him felt real. Nick's unresponsive hand was heavy in Greg's palms.
A long and hard road of recovery was to follow, and Benjamin Warner was signed on as a permanent member of the Las Vegas Crime Lab.
---
He stops in front of the whitewashed door, in a whitewashed corridor, teeming with whitewashed people. For a while, he can only stare at a small scar on the wood - a grey blemish against pure white. He traces the line tentatively and makes a wish. For Nick, for himself, and for Mrs Zimmerman who is now seeing a psychiatrist three times a week. A small cough comes from behind him and he jumps sideways.
"Are you going to go in?" There's a nurse and a man in a wheelchair, and the nurse smiles at him patiently. He looks at the man who seems to be constantly shaking. The man smiles at him and extends a badly-trembling hand.
Greg reaches out, pats the hand lightly and smiles back, "No. Not really." He opens the door and steps aside to let the nurse wheel the man in. He catches a glimpse of Nick at the far side of the room, pale and straining, surrounded by the therapist and a male nurse. He turns away, trying to leave the room before Nick spots him.
"Mr Sanders?"
The therapist calls him and he turns around. He walks numbly to where Nick stands, trembling with exertion, with the nurse providing a steady support. He studies Nick's face, the pinched eyes and pursed lips. There's sweat and tears mingling on Nick's pale, gaunt face. Nick's fingers are wrapped around the bar, trying to steady himself.
He wants to tell Nick about his not-so-good day, about how he fucked up at the crime scene, and how he still bristles when he hears the name Ben Warner. He used to be able to talk through these things with Nick, used to be able to offload and talk things through, dig deep into Nick's well of knowledge and feel secure with the fact that Nick is there beside him.
And Nick is still here, beside him, just not how Greg envisioned it to be a few years ago. Not this Nick who strains to put one foot in front of the other, not this Nick whose muscles have withered into skin and bones. Nick, who had made progress only to have a stupid burglar barge into their borrowed time and rip them apart. Greg is at a tether's end, not knowing what to do, only to grip at reality a little harder, and pray a little louder.
"Are you okay, Mr Sanders?" The therapist has a soothing voice, Greg admits. Very therapist-like, he concludes. She leads him to a chair and sits him down in it, and presses a cup of water into his palms. "It's good that you can come. It will be a tremendous encouragement to Mr Stokes." Greg sips gingerly and sees Nick being lowered onto the mat, legs splayed out in front of him. "We're taking a five minutes break. Then there's another fifteen minutes, and Mr Stokes can go home." Greg watches the nurse gently massaging Nick's legs and hears Nick's tired and contented sigh.
"We're thinking of having Nick live with his parents for a while. What do I have to do in terms of paperwork?"
---