Metadata

By Emily Brunson

©2005

So, like just about any warm-blooded guy he's ever known, he decides to get laid.

This is actually a mission more easily accomplished now than ever before in his previous five-or-so years in Sin City. Not that working odd hours is a rarity in a place where a hell of a lot of businesses stay open all night. But most of the good people -- the kinds of people he preferred, or thought he did, the kinds who were stick-around people -- they start work about the time he stops.

Now, though, he can, if he tries, clock out at a decent hour and have a real date. Have dinner out, go to a club, whatever. It’s all doable.

The next evening, when his official quitting time rolls around, he puts away his stuff and tells Cath to have a nice night and see you tomorrow.

She looks at him in shock. "You're leaving?" she says, as if he’s just announced he’s on his way to maim and torture a few kittens instead of making a stab at having a life.

Nick nods. "Bout that time, isn't it?"

"But."

"Sorry. I got plans."

"What plans?"

He smiles. "Social ones," he says gently. "The kinds normal people do. Remember?"

She’s still staring at him when he turns to go.

At home, he changes into something less work-ish and more go-out-ish, and regards himself in the mirror. Not exactly what he has in mind – he hasn’t got the style he sees in other people, and there’s no use trying to fake it – but it’ll do. He grabs his keys and heads out.

He meets three different people that night. There’s Laura, a junior at UNLV, with blond hair and big brown eyes and legs up to there, and she’s real nice, but after what he figures was definitely not her first cosmopolitan of the night, she disappears into the crowded bathroom and doesn’t come back for a long enough time that she’s either gotten sick or gotten somewhere else, and he gives up.

Down the street at a different bar, there’s Marilena, and she’s nice, too, but too surrounded by a gaggle of girlfriends who speak rapid Spanglish around him as if he’s too Anglo to ever be bothered to understand it, and that makes him tired and sort of pisses him off, so that’s not so great.

Around three, bored, halfway to drunk with none of the enjoyment it usually provides, he walks into the diner on 5^th Street and orders a coffee and a piece of chocolate cream pie, and thinks the night’s pretty much done. Thinks about how once upon a time he’d have had people to go out WITH, friends, and even if he didn’t score with anyone, at least he’d have someone to talk to. But here in Vegas he’s been a workaholic for too long. What social circle he’s ever had has dwindled as his aspirations have grown, and there really isn’t anyone he can call in the middle of the night and say, Hey, let’s watch all three Alien movies, or Let’s open that bottle of Jagermeister you got last month, or Hey, let’s fuck, you wanna?

He takes a morose bite of pie, and the guy down the counter says, "Is it any good?"

Nick looks over. "What?"

"The pie."

"Oh." Nick looks at his plate. "It’s pretty good."

"Works for me." The guy nods at the waitress, and looks back over at Nick. "Diner pie, man," he says with a charmingly crooked smile. "It’s either awesome, or death by ptomaine poisoning."

Nick nods slowly. "Yeah."

"So you here for a convention?"

He watches the guy slurp some coffee, and shakes his head. "No. Live here."

"Really?" The guy is good-looking, in a sort of square way. Sort of like Nick himself, come to think of it. Clean-cut, wholesome, dangling over the edge of boring. "I didn’t know anyone actually lived in Las Vegas. I figured all these people here are just working off gambling debts or something."

He laughs, and Nick smiles politely and nods.

The clean-cut guy’s name is Jonathan, and he’s here for some kind of music-related convention, an acronym that slips from Nick’s brain twenty seconds after he heard it. Jonathan’s from Elmira, New York, and by the time they’ve both finished the really good pie and had refills on their coffees, it’s pretty clear Jonathan’s trying to pick him up.

It’s been a long time since Mack, all the way back to Dallas. He hasn’t thought about Mack in ages, and now he wonders, distantly, what ever happened to him. Since coming here Nick has mostly walked the heterosexual side of the line, those times when he hasn’t simply felt more asexual than anything, no time for a social life and no inclination, either.

Now he considers it. Women have always been the safe choice. Men were the hot choice, but heat has never been kind to him, always ended up flaring up in his face, scorching the shit out of him, and he’s older now and possibly wiser. Certainly warier.

But the truth is he hasn’t gotten laid in an appallingly long time. By a man or a woman, either one, and tonight he does not want to go away alone. And so he doesn’t deflect Jonathan’s cautious flirting, just goes with it, interacts in ways he foggily remembers from bars in Oak Lawn, and when Jonathan touches Nick’s thigh he doesn’t move away.

Jonathan’s staying at the Bellaggio, in one of the cheaper rooms. It’s only a few doors down from a room Nick spent nearly all night two weeks ago dusting and vacuuming and inspecting for evidence, and he has to force that down for a second, think he’s not on the clock, this isn’t business. And then inside the room Jonathan leans in to kiss him, and his mouth tastes like chocolate and coffee, and Nick just goes with it.

The next evening he sees Grissom’s truck outside, and Greg climbing out, and something clenches inside his chest, something hot and furious and excruciatingly painful. He ducks back inside the building and avoids talking to either of them, but it’s like a chancre inside him, throbbing with an astonishing level of hurt.

He clocks out at ten, never having interacted at all with Grissom or Greggo, and shakes his head when Warrick asks him if he wants to grab a beer.

"Don’t you have plans?" Nick asks, and hates the sullen tone of his own voice.

Warrick shrugs. "Not tonight, man. What’s eating you anyway?"

"Nothing."

"So you just morphed into an asshole in the past three hours?"

Nick grins tightly. "Yeah. Guess I did."

"Okay." Warrick waves a hand. "Whatever."

In his truck, he thinks about Greg, about Greg working night shift, as a CSI, no longer a lab rat, no, he’s on the path now, partaking Sensei Gil’s wisdom, and that’s not all he’s partaking of, now, is it? Isn’t that nice. Maybe old Sanders got his promotion the old-fashioned way, hmm?

The idea makes him feel like as much of an asshole as he’s proclaimed, and he drives angrily, yanking his truck viciously into traffic. He stops at the store on the corner near his house and buys a six-pack of Corona, and at the counter he adds a pack of Marlboros and a lighter to the tally.

Outside, the first drag on the cigarette makes him feel woozy, but the burn of the smoke in his lungs is weirdly refreshing, too. It’s been nearly three years since his last cigarette, and it tastes so good. Illicit, bad for him – wonderful.

Smoking isn’t allowed in his condo, so he drags a chair out on the back veranda and drinks beer and embraces his renewed habit, and listens to the party a few doors down. It’s either the two guys who work as linemen for the electric company, or the two girls who go to the university, he can’t tell which, but it doesn’t matter; they’re having a real good time, and he sucks on a wedge of lime and wonders when exactly it came to pass that he was no longer invited to parties. Was it last year? The year before? Did it coincide with the death of his social life, or did he turn down a few invitations even after that? He can’t remember. It sort of edged away, slunk around a corner when his back was turned, too much time spent worshiping at the altar of Gil Grissom, working godawful long hours and trying to keep a foothold on the upward ladder, doncha know. And while he was doing that the rest of his life faded away.

And what does he have to show for it? No promotion. No friends. No love life.

He blows smoke over the fence, thinks about how he needs to water the grass, and goes back inside for another beer.

On Friday night, he bums a cigarette off Jason, one of the two EMTs standing around waiting to load up the body and drive it down to the morgue. And then, in the shadows of the back yard of the tiny house, he kneels to give Jason a blow job, heart pounding from the badness of it, the illicitness of it.

Jason isn’t even bent. Doesn’t much matter. Nick finishes him off, grins, doesn’t look directly into Jason’s dazed embarrassed eyes.

Inside the house, Warrick says, "You decide to take a coffee break or something?"

Nick shrugs. "Something like that. What?"

"We got work to do, in case you hadn’t noticed. Think you could work it into your schedule tonight sometime?"

"Sure, Grissom," Nick snipes, grabbed some gloves. "I’ll get right on it."

Warrick snorts, and goes back to dusting the bathroom.

A couple of hours later they’re in Warrick’s car, and Warrick looks at him. "You start smoking again?"

Nick stares out the window and thinks about the taste of Jason’s cock on his tongue. "So?"

"Aw, man. Grissom gets a whiff of you, he’ll freak."

Nick swivels around to stare at Warrick instead. "Grissom? What does he care?"

"Man, you know how he is about smoking. Perfume. Shit like that."

"I don’t work with Grissom anymore. What do I care?"

"I’m just saying."

"Don’t worry about it."

"Okay, I won’t."

Back at the lab, he gives Grissom a wide berth anyway, not so much afraid of what he’ll see if he smells smoke on Nick’s clothes as – something else, and when Greg calls a greeting Nick just waves and keeps going. He’s fifteen minutes into his fiber samples when Greggo leans against the door frame, hands in his pockets.

"So," Greg says.

Nick doesn’t look up. "Something I can do for you?"

"No, man. Just checking in, you know."

Nick adjusts the focus on the microscope. "I’m kinda busy now, Sanders; can it wait?"

Greg sniffs audibly. "It smells like a bus station in here."

"Okay." Nick sits back, turns to shoot him a look. "What?"

"I didn’t know you smoked. That’s all."

"And?" Nick presses, crossing his arms. "That’s what you wanted to talk to me about?"

"No." Greg’s expression turns unhappy, and he sighs. "Jeez, I was just saying hello."

"All right. Hello. Now can I get back to work?"

"Man, when did you change into such a dick?"

He doesn’t give Nick time to think up a reply. Just shakes his head and leaves, and Nick thinks, About the same time I found out about you, bucko. Think that was exactly when.

It takes about ten minutes for him to start feeling guilty about it. Greg’s not the enemy. Greg’s a friend, used to be just about Nick’s closest friend at work, and spitting in his face like that doesn’t feel good, it feels pretty goddamn rotten. But when he goes looking, furtively thinking about how he’ll apologize for laying into him like that, he finds Greg talking just as furtively with Grissom. Nothing untoward this time; it’s probably business, if their body language is anything to go on. But it kindles that fiery ugliness inside him again, pokes the banked coals back into life, and instead of pulling Greg aside and telling him he’s sorry for acting like an asshole, he walks past them and goes outside for a smoke.

Which is where Grissom finds him, five minutes later.

"Working late tonight?" Grissom asks evenly.

Nick looks around, coughs out a little smoke. "Two DBs down on Orchard."

"I heard." Grissom has his hands in his pockets, his face invisible in the poor light from the parking lot. "I didn’t know you’d started smoking again."

"Jesus," Nick mutters, and looks away. "Maybe I should send out a memo."

"It’s unhealthy."

"No. Really?"

There’s no discernable reaction to his sarcasm; Grissom stands immobile, surveying him like a cold crime scene. "How are things going with you, Nick?" he asks after a long moment.

Nick shrugs and takes a long drag off his cigarette. "All right," he replies. "The usual. You?"

"Since this scheduling change I don’t feel I ever get the chance to speak with you."

Awkwardly, Nick nods. "Way it goes, I guess."

"True."

He puts the butt in the funny-looking container by the bench, and Grissom begins, "Nick –"

"Listen, I better get back to it," Nick interrupts, stashing the half-full pack of cigs in his breast pocket. "You know?"

"Of course," Grissom says softly. "Come by and see me sometime, if you feel like it. Let’s catch up."

Just keep your eye on the sky, Nick thinks, watch those pigs fly right on by, and feels a terrible swell of sadness in his throat. "Sure thing," he says. "Later."

"Later, Nicky."

Back in front of his ‘scope, he has to wait five minutes for his throat to stop hurting, his eyes to stop burning, before he can look in the viewer. Must be the smoke.

Yeah. That’s it.

Two weeks later, he looks at a posting on Forensics-L, and finds out about the position in Nashville. It’s the equivalent of what he’s doing here, money’s about the same. Maybe a little better. A lateral move, no doubt about that. But it’s something.

That morning he pulls up the Word file of his resume, and pokes at it. Hasn’t been updated since he put in for that non-promotion last year. Not much to change, really, and once it’s printed he purses his lips and then opens a new file to write a cover letter.

It isn’t until he slides the packet into the postal pickup that he realizes he’s going to go ahead and apply for the job.

He doesn’t tell anyone. The only person who’s active on F-L besides himself is Sanders, that he knows of, and it isn’t real likely Sanders is job-hunting right now, is it? Nick isn’t completely sure he wants the job anyway. He likes Nashville, spent a bit of time there off and on, has a couple of college friends who moved there for grad school after they got married. Who knows? It beats doing nothing.

That Friday, he thinks about going out to meet women, but the person he ends up with is male, again, a tourist, again. Peter, from Portland, Oregon, here for a cousin’s wedding, and he’s funny, cute in a Sanders-ish sort of geeky way, and he gives amazingly great head. Nick returns the favor, and in the midst of it, it occurs to him that he should be turned on, he should be into it, and he’s thinking about Nashville and how far it is from everything, instead, about whether or not he’ll get an interview.

He pats Peter’s round, pretty ass on the way out and forgets his name by the following morning.

On Tuesday he gets a call from Waters at the Nashville PD. They want him to come out for an interview. Can he be there next Monday?

Nick nods at his cell phone. "Sure," he says softly. "You bet."

He’s on the schedule for the following Monday, but Catherine owes him after all this overtime. She looks steadily at him, her hair shining flatteringly in the light. "So what’s up?"

"Just need to go see about some stuff, that’s all. I should be back by Wednesday."

"Stuff, huh?"

"Yeah."

She nods slowly. "We’ll work around it."

He’s at the door when she says, "Is this what I think it is?"

He turns to look at her. "What?"

"You get an interview?"

He regards her for a moment, and then nods. "Gonna go check it out."

"Nick."

"What?" He fights down a surge of bitterness, and makes himself smile. "I haven’t said yes yet."

Her look is sadder than he’s expected. "You really want to leave? You’re that unhappy here?"

"I didn’t say I was unhappy. Just – you know, it’s kinda getting to be that time."

He can’t read her expression. It’s still sad, but it’s also understanding, in a way that he can’t quite explain, and it’s a little angry, too. "Whatever you say," she replies. "We’d miss you. Bad."

Would you? he thinks, and says awkwardly, "Thanks for letting me have the days off."

"Wish I’d said no."

"Aw, come on."

She sighs, and looks down.

Brian picks him up at the airport. He looks so much the same, Nick feels a weird jerk at his heart. Those were good times, back in Dallas. Brian and Lisa, Joe and Meagan, Nick and his girlfriend of the month. Brian’s heavier now, a little less hair, but his gap-toothed grin is the same, and it feels awesome to see him.

"Lisa’s gonna meet us at the house," Brian says, waiting to pay to leave the airport parking lot. "She can’t wait to see you."

"How’s she doing?"

"Great, man, awesome. You know she got a faculty spot this fall?"

"Yeah? Excellent."

Brian nods. "You’ll finally get to meet Madison."

"How old is she now?"

"Nearly three. I can’t believe you’ve never even seen her. You should have come out before this."

Nick smiles. "But I finally got here."

"And we’re gonna do our best to keep you here, too, man. Lisa’s got plans."

"Oh?"

"Find you a good woman. Settle you down."

"Ah."

Brian’s house is small and messy and endearingly lived-in, and his daughter is the spitting image of her mother, blond and cheerful and soon quite besotted with Nick. That night after a very good supper, Madison asleep in his lap, Nick breathes in the smell of Maddie’s hair and smiles at her parents.

"She’s beautiful."

Lisa’s smile is indulgent, and deeply pleased. "It’s so good to see you, Nicky," she says. "We’ve missed you a lot."

"Y’all seem to be doing really well here. You really like it, huh?"

"Love it. It’s a great place to live."

"What time’s your interview tomorrow?" Brian asks, and takes a sip of beer.

Nick shifts Maddie a little and feels her sigh against his chest. Her breath is sweet, warm baby-smell. "Ten o’clock."

"You can use the Volvo," Lisa says, after a glance at her husband. "We’ll car-pool the Suburban."

"I can call a cab. You don’t need to."

"We want to."

Nick smiles. "Well, okay. Sure. I appreciate it."

He sees them off the following morning, and then dresses and goes in search of the Nashville forensics lab.

The interview is fine. He isn’t nervous, though he expected to be, and Jackson, the guy he interviews with, is laid-back to the point of near-coma. Everything feels easy, not at all the spine-tingling attack of nerves he remembers from his first Vegas interview. Jackson’s the head honcho, for the most part, and Nick can hardly believe this vaguely hippie-ish guy is the same one who wrote that paper last year on computer evidence tampering. Metadata. That one even had Grissom talking for a while.

"You gotta start out on nights," Jackson says, waving a hand. "But I bet we can get you on days pretty soon."

"Nights are fine," Nick says. "I don’t mind."

There’s a tour of their facilities. It’s a smaller setup, older equipment, and even though Nick doesn’t say anything about that it’s clear that Jackson’s up to speed on a few things. "It ain’t Vegas," he says, shrugging. "But we get the job done."

"Looks fine to me."

"And you work with Gil Grissom?"

Nick glances at him and nods. "Yep."

"They say he’s real good. Pretty much the best there is."

"They’re right," Nick says clearly. "He is."

Jackson nods slowly.

They shake hands when it’s done, exchange platitudes. Nick’s pretty sure Jackson already knows he’ll turn down the job, but it’s a friendly thing, no hard feelings, and he walks away without regrets.

He goes to dinner with Brian and his family, eats incredibly delicious Tennessee pit barbecue, and thinks a little wistfully about telling them he won’t be back. Maddie gazes at him adoringly, and Nick crosses his eyes and sticks out his tongue at her, and she crows with sheer delight.

Wednesday afternoon, Catherine reaches up to adjust her sunglasses, stops at a red light, and says, "You gonna take the job?"

Nick leans his elbow on the passenger door. "Don’t think so, no."

"Not too impressed?"

"It was all right. But."

"Thank god."

He smiles, watching the light turn green. "I told you, just an interview."

"You have no idea how much we’d miss you if you left. Do you?"

Her tone isn’t the light one he’s been using. She sounds serious, and he glances at her while she accelerates. "No," he says without thinking. "I -- I hadn’t thought about it."

Catherine bites her lower lip for a second and then says, "A lot, Nick. Do you really want to go?"

After a moment he replies, "I don’t know."

"Can I help?"

Help what? he wonders. Help me? Find a job, or find a reason to stay? "No. I don’t guess so."

She nods, and goes back to chewing on her lip.

Greg drives his own car to work that evening. His expression is blank, a little wounded, and Nick watches him carefully, concerned in spite of himself. Trouble in paradise, maybe, but he hates that bitter side of himself, and besides, he’s been a dick long enough. He follows Greg into the locker room, and frowns, watching Greg’s jerky, clumsy motions.

"You all right?" he asks.

Greg doesn’t look at him. "Yeah, fine. How’s it going?"

"Okay," Nick says absently. "You don’t look so fine."

Greg gives a short nod. "Just some shit. I’ll live." He produces a brittle smile. "Better get to work."

"You want to talk about it?"

"Frankly? No. I really don’t."

It stings a little. At one time Greg would have spilled it all, whatever it was. Now he looks distant, as if Nick is just a barrier between him and things he’d far rather be doing. It doesn’t feel very good. In fact it feels pretty damn bad. Nick nods. "Okay," he says softly. "I understand."

"Do you?" Greg’s eyes are dark and filled with bitterness. "Sometimes I wonder."

"Wonder about what?"

Greg’s lips move, but he doesn’t speak for a second. Then he shakes his head. "Never mind."

Nick watches him go, puzzled and more worried than he’s expected.

No one gives him the answer to the puzzle. He figures it out on his own, the gist of it, at least. Something’s gone down between Greg and Grissom, something bad, and if Greg looks quenched and miserable, Grissom looks thunderous, as bad a mood as Nick has ever seen and possibly worse. For the first time he’s glad he’s working with Cath now, at least mostly. This kind of mood, Grissom can be a pure-D bitch to work with.

It’s nearly midnight before he’s ready to go himself. Outside, he spies Greg talking on his cell phone. Greg hangs up when he sees him, standing motionless while Nick walks up.

"Look, you wanna go grab some lunch?" Nick asks awkwardly. "I mean, I can tell some bad mojo’s gone on, and I just –"

"Are you leaving?" Greg asks.

Nick blinks at him. "Leaving? No, I’m -- I’m not leaving. Why?"

"But you had an interview. That’s what you went out of town for. Right?"

Nick’s stomach gives an uneasy lurch. There’s something weird in Greg’s flat voice, something Nick doesn’t recognize at all. It’s anger, but it’s also hurt, and he thinks about Catherine’s words earlier and wonders. "Yeah," he says after a moment. "Yeah, Nashville. But I’m not gonna take it if they offer it. Just – checking it out. That’s all."

"Checking it out."

"Yeah." Nick frowns. "What, are you mad at me for that? It’s no big deal, Greg. Just this thing."

Greg gives a tight nod, looks away. "Must be nice."

"Nice? What’s nice?"

"Is that why? To shake everybody up?"

Nick is floundering. He shakes his head. "Shake who up? Why what?"

"You know who," Greg whispers.

"No, I don’t," Nick says honestly. "Jesus, Greggo, what the hell –"

"So you’re telling me this little wakeup call wasn’t that? Oh, come on, Nick. You want back on his team, you want to remind him, don’t think I can’t figure that out on my own."

There’s a flicker of anger in Nick’s belly now, too, and he frowns. "Remind who? Grissom? This hasn’t got anything to do with Grissom."

"Right." Greg is pale, and he drawls the word as if he’s the one from Texas, not Nick. "Sure it doesn’t."

"Okay, just back the fuck up, all right?" Nick holds up his hands. "Where is this coming from? You think -- What?"

"So you’re saying you didn’t do this to get his attention?"

Facing Greg’s hot, furious eyes, Nick hasn’t got a clue what to say. The truth is, he wasn’t aware that that was what he was doing, but it’s absolutely not out of the question. In some subconscious way, that might be exactly why he did it. After all, rumors get around in the lab. No matter how much he tried to keep it a secret, someone was bound to find out. And eventually Grissom would hear about it. Of course.

But if it was a reason, it wasn’t the only reason. That’s the truth, too, and so he shakes his head slowly. "I didn’t want anybody to find out," he says, mostly honestly. "But I’d like to do something more, something better, and after last year I figured out that wasn’t gonna happen here. So I had an interview. So what? You trying to tell me you’re mad at me for that? Or what?"

He meets Greg’s gaze, and is shocked to see tears in Greg’s eyes now. "It’s always about you, " Greg says in a strained voice. "Even when it’s not, it is. I can’t compete with that."

Nick draws a breath to ask what the fuck THAT means, and Greg shakes his head. "Never mind," he says dully. He seems completely unaware of the wetness on his cheeks. "Doesn’t matter."

"Greg, for fuck’s sake, if I DID something, tell me!"

"That’s just it," Greg whispers. "You’ll always do something. And he’s never gonna get past that. Past you."

"Me?" Nick stammers. "Is this Grissom we’re talking about? Greg, there IS no me. It’s just you, okay? I’m not -- I’m not there. I’m over here."

Greg nods slowly. His eyes are dry now. "Is that really what you think? Because if it is, you’re really dumb, Nick. Really, incredibly, mindblowingly stupid."

"I don’t understand," Nick says helplessly.

Greg utters a short, bitter laugh. "Yeah, I see that. But I’m done explaining it to you. Figure it out on your own, Nick. I’m all done."

Greg walks away, back stiff and straight and no looking back. Nick just stands there, gaping in his wake, mouth open. What the fuck just happened?

He’s still stunned when he trudges to his truck and climbs inside.

He hasn’t figured it all out the next night, either, and when Grissom and Greg arrive separately again, both looking unhappy – still – he doesn’t know what to do about it. Can’t shake the idea that if he only knew what, there IS something. Something he can do. But he can’t get a fix on it. It dances out of reach, a flicker of understanding that fades just as fast as it appears.

It isn’t as surprising as all that, though, when Grissom buttonholes him again on a smoke break. It’s part of the picture Nick can’t quite see yet, that’s all.

Grissom’s face is tight and unreadable. "I’ll move you back on night shift," he says abruptly.

Nick gazes at him with his mouth hanging open for a second. All he can manage is, "Huh?" before Grissom lumbers onward.

"If that’s what it takes." Grissom clears his throat, his eyes narrowing. "Will that suffice?"

"For what?"

"To keep you in Las Vegas, instead of taking another position elsewhere."

"Jesus," Nick whispers, because he can’t think of anything at all to say to that. Finally he meets Grissom’s terrible eyes and says, "It leaves Catherine’s shift short."

Grissom shakes his head. Agony twists his features, and he says, "Not if I move Greg."

It’s too much. It’s all coming down on his head, it’s raining crap all over the place, and all of a sudden he sees it, or at least part of it. Hard not to, when it’s smacking you right in the face. "Jesus," he says again, breathless. "You can’t do that."

"Of course I can," Grissom snaps. He appears completely unaware of the misery smeared all over his expression. "I can, and I will, if that’s what it takes. But I want your promise. You’ll stay. Will you?"

"Wh -- Why does it matter? Everything changes, Grissom, it’s not like this is any –"

Grissom’s hands shoot out to press against Nick’s cheeks, hard. His fingers are ice-cold, and shaking. "You know why it matters," he says in a garbled whisper. "You know, goddamn it."

"No, I don –"

Grissom kisses him, hard, right on the mouth.

It’s a fast, painful kiss, and Grissom doesn’t let go of him. Nick stares into his inky-blue eyes, seeing nothing but anguish and lust and desperation, and it so matches the mass of emotion roiling in his own belly that he can’t help but make a hoarse needy sound of his own. Grissom’s mouth twists, and there’s another kiss, not as hard but deeper, wilder, and Nick’s knees wobble underneath him at the same time he opens his mouth and lets Grissom’s tongue inside him, tastes him and lets him taste himself, and realizes that this can’t happen. Can’t, shouldn’t.

Won’t.

He makes his knees lock again, and pulls back, reaching up to pry Grissom’s strong fingers off him. For a second he can still see the heat in Grissom’s eyes, feel his heart fluttering in his chest. And then Nick blinks, thinks, No, it won’t, and Grissom blinks, too, stares at him so intensely Nick feels it like July sun on his face.

"No," Nick says hoarsely, and it feels like a knife sliding fast and deep into his gut. "No transfers."

Hurt takes the place of confusion on Grissom’s eerily readable features. "What?"

"I can’t – do this."

It’s a useful sentence. Because it can mean so many things. To Grissom, it obviously means he can’t do this, this kissing, this thing they’ve just done. He jerks back, as sharply as if Nick had just spit in his face.

"I’m not into that," Nick adds woodenly. "I mean, sorry. You know. But no."

The light’s too dim for him to be absolutely sure, but he thinks Grissom is flushing. And his eyes dart away, and it doesn’t take good light to see that that’s because he’s suddenly mortified.

"I – overstepped myself," Grissom says, in a formal, distant voice. "I thought -- I apologize."

"It’s okay."

"No." Grissom gives a fast, single shake of his head. "No, it’s really not. But it won’t happen again. I promise you."

The knife in Nick’s belly slides upward, cutting through tendons and organs and arrowing in the direction of his heart. He nods. "I mean, I’m flattered," he hears himself say. That cool, alien voice, not at all the scream of agony he’s keeping inside his lungs. "But I don’t, you know."

"We won’t mention it again." Grissom turns, pauses, his profile clean in the reflection from the glass lobby doors. "I’d still rather you didn’t leave. But I will – understand, if you choose to anyway."

Nick can’t say anything to that. He watches Grissom nod once to himself, his face as composed as perfect white marble, and then stride fast up the steps, hit the door straight-arm and walk inside.

He closes his eyes, and after a very long moment he reaches into his pocket for his smokes. His fingers shake while he draws one out, and it takes six clicks of his lighter to get it lit.

The next night, Grissom and Greg arrive together, and Nick holds very still until they’ve passed him, letting out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding once they’re gone. Then it’s done.

Catherine asks him on Thursday why he’s so quiet. He can’t explain it, and so he prevaricates. Tired, got a lot on my mind, this case is awful, so on and so forth.

"You take things so to heart," Catherine says gently. Her fingers are warm on his wrist. "But you can’t fix everyone’s problems. No matter how hard you try."

"I know." He gives her a slow nod. "I realize that."

She squeezes his wrist again, and walks away.

He doesn’t go out Friday. He isn’t in the mood; somehow the kind of anonymous sex he’s been having lately, while gratifying in a purely physical way, leaves him feeling lonelier than when he started, and instead of putting on some nice clothes and heading out to a club he stays home. Drinks a beer, catches a couple of movies on HBO. Looks at his half-full pack of cigarettes and dully regrets having started smoking again. Goddamn, was so fucking hard to stop the last time. It’d be harder this time, guarantee.

He’s only slightly tipsy when he goes to bed, but it’s enough to make him sleep hard and dreamlessly, and for that he’s grateful.

On Monday Greg stops by the ballistics lab where Nick and Bobby are arguing over whether or not a .38 could have made that bizarre hole in Angela Boone’s head. Nick glances at him, and then says, "Be right back, Bob," before walking out into the hallway.

"Everything okay?" he asks, frowning.

Greg gives a quick nod. "I wanted to apologize. For –" He pauses, frowns, too. "I was kind of a dick to you the other night. I don’t really think you’d be manipulative like that. That was a low blow."

Nick watches him, and then shrugs. "It’s all right. No harm done."

"You seem – different."

"Yeah?"

Greg nods again. "You okay?"

"I’m all right. Can’t complain."

Greg shifts, sliding his hands into his pockets. "You’re not really looking, are you? Like, for another job? Because that would suck."

"We’ll see," Nick says, and reaches out to pat Greg’s shoulder. "No plans right now. But thanks, man."

"Any time," Greg says softly.

His eyes are still puzzled, a little confused, when Nick walks back into the room and Bobby says something about how it was definitely a Mag .57, nothing smaller, he’d stake next month’s paycheck on it.

He checks F-L pretty religiously. But it isn’t where he gets the nod, ultimately. That’s a phone call, Garrett Riley, the guy from Detroit Nick met a year ago at the convention in Atlanta. They’ve kept in touch, mostly email but a few phone calls, since Garrett’s hot to come work in Vegas someday.

After the pleasantries, Garrett says, "So I heard you were looking."

Nick blinks, and draws a deep breath. "Nothing stays secret long, does it?"

"Aw, I got a friend works with a friend of a friend, said you were in Tennessee not too long ago, talking with Jackson. But I heard you turned him down."

"I did," Nick says, nodding. "Didn’t turn out to be my thing."

"So you’re still on the market?"

"I guess. Why?"

Garrett clears his throat, and Nick can see him in his mind’s eye, plucking at that ratty goatee and pursing his lips. "I heard about something near here. Not my thing, there, no way, but it’s sort of interesting."

"Go on?"

He listens while Garrett describes the job. He’s right, it is interesting, certainly different. And, Garrett adds, he’s taken the liberty of already mentioning Nick’s name to the guy who first told him about it.

"Takes somebody with some different background," Garrett says, having warmed to his subject. "And you doing the cop thing a few years back, that makes you a pretty good match. I mean, it’s the ass-end of nowhere, man. I realize that, it ain’t no Vegas. But you’d have a lot of authority."

Nick nods slowly. "Sounds like it, yeah."

"So anyway. I’ll email you the address and contact names and stuff. Like I said, they’re expecting to hear from you. This guy, Jaynes, he said you sounded like just what they’re looking for."

"Send it. I’ll have a look."

"Excellent."

"Thanks, Garrett."

"No problemo."

He gets the email about five minutes later. Nothing Garrett hasn’t already told him. But Nick scans it, thinks about it. And the next afternoon he drops his vitae in the box on the way to work.

Norbert Jaynes calls him on Saturday. He has a voice deep as an organ bass, and he’s offering a paid trip out to have a look. Nick arranges for it to be the next weekend, no time off this time, and Jaynes tells him he’ll overnight some tickets, and that’s that.

Silver Bay, Minnesota, is, to Nick’s desert-acclimated eyes, stunningly beautiful, cold, and very small. Water is everywhere, but he can’t stop staring at the big one, Lake Superior, glimmering under the pallid sun, dark and unthinkably vast, intimidating as hell.

Norbert Jaynes picks him up at the airport. It’s a drive to Silver Bay, but it’s unspeakably beautiful, and Jaynes – "Bert," as he insists Nick call him – is something of an amateur historian, pointing out various sights and filling in the longish background of the area.

"Guess you know you’d be putting some serious mileage on your vehicle," Bert tells him, gesturing at the highway ahead. "You’d be pretty much single-handedly covering the North Shore, from Two Harbors, south of here, all the way up to Grand Portage."

"I’m from Texas," Nick says dryly. "Distance isn’t a problem."

Bert laughs, showing bright white teeth.

The job as it stands is both criminalistics and regular law enforcement. He’d have all the rank and considerations of a state trooper, along with forensics duties. The concession to forensics is that he doesn’t necessarily have to BE a state trooper; he’d have the badge and the authority, but doesn’t have to deal with speeding tickets and the like. Instead he’ll be the acting coroner, the technician, the equivalent of a CSI and Robbins and Grissom, all rolled into one.

"Lab isn’t totally set up yet," Bert tells him, while they survey the two-room facility in Silver Bay. "And the big things, like DNA, we’ll still send down to Duluth for analysis. But up here we’ll be able to handle the regular stuff. And we need a man who can collect, analyze, determine. We don’t get that many autopsies around here, but it’d save us a hell of a lot of time if we could handle them here instead of waiting for Duluth to get around to it."

"I’m not a medical examiner," Nick says absently, eyes taking in the new computers. "I’m no MD."

"Don’t gotta be," Bert replies calmly. "But you have a hell of a lot more experience than John Albertson."

Nick looks his question, and Bert adds, "Funeral director."

"Ah."

Outside, he breathes in the scented air and reaches for his smokes. Bert’s already holding a lit Kool. "You a family man?" he asks.

It’s near the top of the list of politically forbidden interview questions, but Nick doesn’t mind it. "Nope," he says, exhaling smoke. "Never been married."

"This is a job for a single man. Be hard on a family, all that traveling, a lot of work."

"Doesn’t sound so bad. I like keeping busy."

Bert grins. "That it’ll do."

They go to a restaurant for dinner. Over excellent fish Bert tells him about the money, the per diem, the mileage. Nuts and bolts, and it isn’t that great, but he doesn’t need a lot. Enough to live on, that’ll do.

"So what do you think?" Bert asks when they have steaming cups of coffee on the table.

Nick sips his coffee and taps his cigarette in the ashtray. "I think it sounds pretty damn good," he replies, and grins.

"That mean you’ll take it?"

"You offering?"

Bert shakes his head, his smile rueful. "Tell you the god’s honest truth?"

"You bet."

"Not a whole lotta people lining up for the job."

"Then I guess I’m in luck."

"Think we both are." Bert extends his hand across the table. "Then I guess I better say, Welcome to Minnesota, Nick."

Nick clasps his fingers and shakes. "Thanks, Bert. Happy to be here."

It’s pretty cut and dried. Bert’s okay is next to gospel around here, and although Nick meets a number of other folks, troopers, staff, a few other locals, no one seems to have any question that this is their new criminalist/coroner, and real nice to meet you, Mr. Stokes.

Nick, he tells them. Just Nick.

At the microscopic airport he promises Bert he’ll let him know exactly when he can report to work. It’ll be a little bit; he has to get the condo on the market, pack up, give some notice in his current job. But he’ll do his best to make it by early May.

"Let me know if you need anything from our end," Bert tells him, cheeks red in the blustering wind. "You got my number."

"Will do," Nick calls, and slings his bag into the plane.

No one is very surprised at his news. It appears the grapevine has been flourishing, and everyone’s just been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Catherine looks really beat, more down about it than he’s expected, and she doesn’t say much. Just nods, congratulates him in a fake-happy voice, and vanishes herself into paperwork.

Warrick and Sara evince the most shock. They may have heard rumors, but it’s clear they didn’t believe it would happen anytime soon. But they’re pleasant about it, express a lot of disappointment that he’ll be leaving, tell him he’s leaving big shoes to fill.

He isn’t sure whether or not he agrees with that last, but hey. It’s nice to hear it.

It hurts a lot more than he’s expected, to talk to Greg about it. Partly because he likes Greg, Greg’s his friend, and even if they haven’t been as chummy lately as once, people like Greg don’t grow on trees.

And partly because facing Greg, Nick faces the choice he’s made. And there are weak moments, times when he can’t believe he’s done it, that he’s walking away. Times when he still feels as if Greg has come in between whatever might have been, and what is.

Doesn’t really matter. Greg hugs him longer and tighter than Nick expects, and it’s damn hard not to get misty when he finally lets go. But he does let go.

He doesn’t see much of Grissom. What he does see, is pure formality, a few kind words and a promise to put an excellent letter of recommendation on file, just so he knows. It’s nice, and distant, and safe. Nick is grateful for it.

There’s a party, just a few folks there, their shift and a couple of people from days, and the handful of cops Nick has worked with who’ve managed to stay alive all this time. He gets quite, quite drunk, and ends up puking on the side of Catherine’s car, and the next day he doesn’t remember anything after that, which he figures is probably a good thing.

He hasn’t sold the condo by the time the movers arrive. He isn’t too worried, though; his agent’s told him it’ll sell by June at the latest, and in the meantime don’t go down too far on the price. Nick agrees, and watches anxiously while the moving crew sets about transferring all his various crap from home to truck.

Empty, the condo looks forlorn, much bigger than it had felt a day ago. He walks through the rooms, hopes the cleaners show up tomorrow like they’re supposed to. He won’t know until after the fact; he’s setting out early, before sunup, because it’s a long-ass drive to Minnesota.

He’s standing at the doorway, holding his cigarette nominally outside, when a truck pulls up at the curb. Grissom’s dressed all in black, somber as a judge and expressionless as he walks up the sidewalk.

"Hey," Nick says awkwardly. "What’s up?"

Grissom watches him stub out his cigarette. "Movers already gone?" His voice is calm, even.

Nick nods. "Be a couple weeks before they get there, though. I think they’ve got another pickup in California, then they’ll go to like, Seattle, and then back to Minnesota. Crazy."

"Where will you stay tonight?"

"Right here. I got a sleeping bag, and I kept out a coffee cup." Nick smiles. "Gotta hit the road early tomorrow."

"I imagine so. It’s a long drive."

"Really long, yeah." Nick shifts awkwardly. "I mean, you’d think being from Texas it wouldn’t bother me, and it doesn’t, you know. But that’s a lot of hours."

"How many?"

"Twenty-six, twenty-seven."

Grissom frowns. "You won’t do it all in one stretch, will you?"

"Nah. I’ll bunk someplace tomorrow night. Motel, something."

"Good."

"You want – a beer, something? I got a few left in the fridge."

Grissom shakes his head. "No."

Watching him, Nick feels his heart take a funny stuttering leap in his chest. So goddamn awkward, why is Grissom HERE? Haven’t they said all there is to say? He’s given the guy the brush-off, Grissom’s back with Greg where he belongs, what –

Grissom makes an inarticulate sound, and walks forward, an arm sliding around Nick’s waist and pulling him inside. Nick staggers against him, and then Grissom is kissing him, and he’s kissing back, mindless, desperately uncaring. He wraps his arms around Grissom’s neck, clings as hard as Grissom is holding onto him, and there isn’t anything else, for a while, nothing but Grissom’s warm wet mouth and expert tongue and the unbearable rightness of this endless kiss.

Grissom ends it, but only to say, "Don’t fucking go." Harsh, a completely unfamiliar voice, like brushing a velvet coat with sandpaper. His eyes are wide and dark and beseeching, and he kisses Nick’s mouth again, hands sliding up Nick’s spine, down again to whisper over his ass. "Don’t go, Nick. Don’t."

Nick sobs once, out of nowhere, and says, "I have to."

Grissom shakes his head wildly. "No, you don’t! You want me to pretend I believe that – that bullshit you told me a few weeks ago?" He presses his flushed face against Nick’s throat, licks his Adam’s apple. "I didn’t believe it then, either. But I thought -- I thought maybe you were right. But you weren’t, Nick. You were so goddamn wrong."

He thinks about Greg’s tears, the tears he hadn’t known he was shedding, and clenches his eyes shut, fingers stroking Grissom’s curling hair. "No, I wasn’t," Nick whispers. "But I’ll tell you something."

"What?" Gil blurts, pulling back to stare at him.

Nick meets his gaze as steadily as he can. "I wish I were," he says shakily. "Oh, I wish I were."

Gil takes a step back, not quite breaking contact, a hand clenched in Nick’s shirt. "It’s because of Greg, isn’t it?" he says, and now his eyes are bright, not with tears but a kind of fury, and aching grief. "That’s why you’re leaving."

"You’re with him," Nick says, and the words feel like thick taffy in his throat, choking him. "Whatever else, I know that. I’m not that kind of guy, Gil, don’t you get it? I won’t do that to him. I won’t."

"He’s not you," Gil blurts.

"No." Nick nods, and catches Gil’s hand, brings it to his lips and kisses the knuckles. "But what you gotta remember, okay? What you have to remember is, I’m not him, either." He presses the back of Gil’s hand to his cheek. "I can’t be. And one day you’d think about that. I’d see it in your eyes, what you gave up. I’m not going to go there, man. I’m not."

Gil’s arm is heavy, and when Nick releases his hand the arm drops limply to Gil’s side. His expression is oddly blank now, and Nick realizes he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Gil look defeated before. Older, lost. So terribly uncertain.

"It’ll get better," Nick says, and he’s glad he sounds sure of himself. He doesn’t feel that way. "It will. Just – let me go, Gil. Walk away. Go back to Greg. He loves you. God, he loves you so much."

"And you?" Gil says hollowly. "How do you feel?"

Nick lifts his chin. "I feel," he replies in a slow voice, "like it’s the start of an adventure." He smiles wistfully. "Go home, Gil," he whispers. "It’ll be all right."

Gil’s sad blue eyes lock with his own, and then he turns away, walking fast and stiffly out the door, back down the sidewalk. Nick waits until he hears the truck start, the disappearing sound of the engine.

Then he sits down, hard, right where he is, and puts his face in his hands.

It ends up taking three days to get there; his truck breaks down just outside Lincoln, and it eats up all of one afternoon to get a new water pump. But finally he’s got the water to his right, that vast dark expanse of wetness that fills him with wonder and obscure fear at the same time. He’s a stranger to big water; he’s never lived this near it. He wonders if it will start feeling comfortable someday, but privately he doubts it.

Bert has lined up a few places for him to look at, a couple of apartments and three different houses. They all feel sort of similar, but one house is very near the harbor, painted deep red and snug, and from the windows in the minuscule living room he can see the sun on the water, glittering like a spotlight on a chest full of diamonds, and it’s so beautiful that he signs the lease shortly after. A little more than he can comfortably afford on his chintzy salary, but he’ll deal with it.

The movers arrive just as he’s starting to sweat the cost of the motel. And seeing his stuff again is an incredible relief. It all fits, a little tightly in places but not so bad, and that night he sleeps in his own bed again, sleeps like a log.

At five-twenty-two the phone rings. He answers after four rings, disoriented, for a second not even sure where the hell he is.

"Got something you might wanna look at," Bert Jaynes says, sounding almost as groggy as Nick feels. "Boat up near Kennedy Landing, pulled in a body this morning. Not sure what we got yet, but guess you’ll find out."

Nick sits up, fumbling with his feet for his slippers. "Kennedy Landing. That’s north, right?"

"Northeast. Take 61. Take you right there. Frank Lindsey’ll meet you, just look for the lights."

"Okay."

He makes a fast pot of coffee in his unfamiliar kitchen, and fills a Thermos. Dressed, he grabs his gear and heads out to his truck, and sees the lake tinged pink with the rising sun. It’s beautiful, so beautiful, and he wastes a moment staring, just taking it in, this new place, new things.

Then he climbs in his truck and aims for the highway, turning on the radio and seeing if there’s a local station worth listening to. Near the high end of the dial he finds somebody playing Stevie Ray Vaughn. "Texas Flood."

He grins, and takes a sip of hot coffee.

END

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