Yay, another fic! This is my first CSI-fic, hope I did good. ^_^
Disclaimer: Yep, it's me that owns CSI, didn't you know? DUH! As if. Did you really fall for that? I own nothing (except for my clothes and my cat, and the plot. Oh, and my computer.)
"Mommy! Mommy, look, a butterfly!" Little Gregory Hojem Sanders, five years old jumped excitedly up and down and pointed at the winged creature, eyes shinig with amazement. If you had asked Greg what he wanted to be when he grew up he would have told you without any hesitation that he wanted to be a bird, and fly. Because there was nothing that seemed more wonderful in the whole world to the small boy than to be able to lift from the ground and fly around freely, without any hinders, feeling the wind under your wings as you tumbled around amongst the clouds. He wondered how clouds felt. Maybe they were like cotton, or like his bed, soft, warm, or perhaps like spun sugar? He loved spun sugar.
"Look, look! Ooh, a bird!" Greg pulled at his mom's hand and pointed to the sky, where a swallow was flying around at a neckbreaking speed. He felt his little heart beat faster, soaring into the sky with the bird.
His mom just smiled.
"Greg, I need those results now, or the suspect is gonna walk! Can you hurry up, instead of goofing around?! Jeez, you're such a kid sometimes." Greg stared into the microscope and pretended to be studying some sample so that Nick wouldn't see the tears that had started to well up in his eyes. As soon as the older CSI had left the room he shakily wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his labcoat and grabbed the pile of evidence that Nick had left for testing.
He was working as quickly as he could, dammit! If he danced around to his music as he waited for the machine to finish, so what? He was still one of the best DNA techs in the country, and he worked at least twice as fast as any other lab tech in the building. He even finished before everybody else although he had a heavy backlog from the dayshift to take care of! But no, of course nobody cared about that. To them he just was the annoying little lab rat and CSI-wannabe who wore weird clothes and always had his hair in some crazy, preferably spiky fashion and never could be serious. They all saw him as a goofy little kid, and he hated that. He was twentyfour years old, not some college kid.
"Greg! Are you done yet?!" Greg jumped in shock and dropped the vial he was holding so that it fell to the floor, shattering into a thousand of pieces. He felt his heart sink, until it met the bottom with a dull thud.
Grissom was gonna kill him.
Greg ran over to where his father was standing, grinning broadly in that trademark smile Greg himself would be known for when he grew older, and told him animatedly about the butterfly and the bird he had seen. His parents laughed and ruffled his golden-brown locks, holding him close. He nuzzled closer and smiled happily. He felt so safe, so content. So loved.
He loved life.
Greg sat on his couch, staring unseeing into the wall of his small apartment. He knew the living room looked like a dump, but why should he care? It wasn't like anybody was ever gonna come over and see the mess. He pulled his knees even closer to his chest, cradling himself like a scared and lonely baby in need of comfort. And maybe, in some ways, he was. He felt more tears slide down his already wet cheeks, staining his collar and making it feel uncomfortable against his skin. He never had any friends come over, because he had no friends. Sure, Archie and Bobby and Wendy over at the lab were nice and he could have fun talking to them, but they had their own friends outside the lab and never had that much time to do something with him. And Nick and Warrick, well, they just thought he was downright annoying, trailing after them like some lost puppy. Sure, they were probably like ten years older than him, but anyway...
He sighed. Who was he kidding? All the CSIs found him annoying. But he couldn't help that he always seemed to burst with energy, and with all the coffee he drank it shouldn't be so surprising, and how was he ever gonna learn if he never asked? Surely he couldn't be so bad that everybody hated him? Could he? He glared at the pillow sitting next to him on the couch as if it was the most offending thing in the world. With a sudden shriek of anger he grabbed the offending item and threw it across the room, knocking down a small figurine he had gotten from his mom on his eighteenth birthday, breaking it into three pieces.
He sank slowly down onto the couch again, his anger dissapearing as quickly as it flared up leaving only a hollow feeling in his stomach. Everything he held these days seemed to shatter into pieces. Maybe he would shatter, too, if he held himself too hard. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. He sobbed quietly. He felt so lost, so lonely. He hated himself.
He wanted to die.
They had spent the whole day at the zoo, looking at the different animals and eating ice cream. Greg had even gotten some spun sugar, and he had decided to himself that yep, that was probably what clouds were like. He wondered if the birds used to eat the clouds like he ate his spun sugar, and that was why they grew smaller and dissappeared. But then who was it that made all the new clouds? He frowned slightly. He had to ask mom that. She knew everything.
But just as he opened his mouth the most beautiful bird he had ever seen lifted from the arm of a trainer and threw itself up into the air. He stared at it, slack-jawed with wonder as the magnificent beast spread its huge wings and sailed upwards, making a stunning silhouette against the sun, a picture that would forever stay printed on the inside of his eyelids. He had never seen anything as beautiful as that, and during the rest of his life he would always close his eyes when he saw something amazing, comparing it against his memory of the bird. And they always failed.
He spent the whole days in his lab in silence, nowadays. Nobody seemed to notice, other than to comment on how nice and quiet everything seemed. They never noticed that he barely smiled anymore, or that when he did it was as fake as the silicon breasts on that dead supermodel from a case last month, or that his steps had lost their bounce. If somebody thought it was odd that he wore long sleeves despite the extreme heatwave they never raised an eyebrow, shrugging it off as another weird clothing style by the weird kid. And the fact that he was way too pale, or that his clothes hung too lose on his thin frame was only something you would notice if you really looked, and to look you had to care.
He wanted them to care, really. He had just stopped to care himself. But he tried so hard, to make them look at him, to see him. He wanted to make them proud, so he maxed out on his overtime, finishing every task they gave him as soon as humanly possible, being quiet and staying out of their way. He wanted them to be proud of him so badly that it hurt. But he always failed.
He pulled at his dad's hand and pointed at the large bird, overwhelmed with joy and excitement. His parents looked up and shaded their eyes with their big adult hands, soft sounds of awe leaving their lips as they watched the bird circle over their heads. Greg smiled happily. His parents understood, they saw why he was so fascinated by the birds, he could tell by their faces shining with the same happiness he felt.
"Greg, that is an eagle. They are really majestic birds, aren't they, son?" His dad smiled down at him and Greg nodded happily.
"I want to be a bird too. When I grow up I'm gonna fly, someday, I just don't know how yet." His mother laughed and Greg squealed with surprise as his dad lifted him up from the ground and held him high up in the air.
He looked down at the lights of the cars and shops beneath him, shining like small fireflies in the distance. It was really far down. He wondered how many meters it was, exactly. He had taken off his lab coat and left it in his locker, neatly folded and with the letter on top. He didn't want anybody to get pissed off because he had ruined any state property. He sighed and bent his head backwards, looking up at the sky. The clouds had a soft pink and orange colour, and were tinted with gold. He no longer had the illusion that they felt or tasted like spun sugar, no matter how nice they looked. With all the pollution in the world they would probably taste more like licking an ashtray, if they had been dense enough to eat. So much for childhood dreams. But he would fulfill one of them, at least.
"Spread your arms out like wings, Greg, feel the wind gently ruffle your feathers!"
He closed his eyes and spread his arms slowly as he leaned forward.
"Look, mom, I can fly!"
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