We walked along the shore of Lake Mead. The water was dark and still in the night air. The occasional gust of wind created rippling waves that glinted in the moonlight. We stopped walking and stared at the black water.
Greg looked over his shoulder at the crime scene behind us: the flashing police lights, the headlights of patrol cars. The lights were slowly fading as we moved further and further away from the scene. Greg scuffed his feet against the wet soil beneath him. He looked up at the sky; the stars were few and far between, covered by grey clouds moving slowly across the sky. I nudged him, and we began walking again.
I walked with my hand pressed against the small of Greg's back, guiding him forwards. I glanced at Greg, cast in shadows; he was smoky and dull in the pale moonlight. The air stifled us; the sky promised rain. The desert was dangerous tonight. Who ever knew the heavens menace so? Those that have known the world so full of faults.
Even more portentous that it night, it seemed, was Greg himself. I had never seen the man wearing a suit in the desert before. His jacket, silhouetted against the lake like a black cape, made him appear hard and unreachable. Cold as stone.
The sight was as strange as the situation:
Greg had shown up at my crime scene about thirty minutes ago. I hadn't expected him to drive up to the scene in his little Jetta. I didn't even know he was back in Vegas yet.
I walked up to greet Greg, just as he stepped out of the car. Greg looked haunted and harsh in the bright light emanating from the headlights of the patrol cars. His black suit seemed to drag him into the earth.
"Hey, Nick," Greg said with a crooked smile. He sounded even worse than he looked.
"Hey," I said, and I shook his hand—cold. "When did you get back to Vegas?"
Greg smiled faintly and shrugged. "Couple of hours ago."
That concerned me. "Aww, man, don't tell me you came here straight from the airport."
Greg rubbed the back of his neck and mumbled: "Stopped at home first. Dropped off my luggage, got my car."
But you didn't change, I thought, but didn't dare to say. I reached forwards and straightened the lapels of Greg's jacket. From the looks of it, not since the funeral this afternoon.
Greg sighed with his whole body, and let his head drop to his chest. He stared at my hands.
"You on shift?" I murmured.
Greg stood up straighter. "Nope."
I jerked my head in the direction of the crime scene and said: "Let's go."
We slipped under the crime scene and I got to work. Greg stood idly by, arms across his chest, head to the side, watching.
"You missed a blood drop over there," he muttered, pointing it out to me. I was on my hands and knees in the dirt.
"Thanks," I mumbled. I swabbed it and sat back on my heels. "Wanna run it?"
Greg frowned and wrapped his arms around him tighter. "No."
I sighed and snapped off my gloves. "Okay. Let's go for a walk."
And here we were: walking along the shore of Lake Mead.
"How was the funeral?" I asked.
"Nice enough, I guess," Greg muttered hesitantly, opting to keep his gaze on the ground in front of him. "'Her brother delivered the eulogy," he cleared his throat and breathed unevenly. I stepped in front of him and gripped his elbows, forcing him to stop walking. "I guess it didn't really hit me until I heard him talking about her, ya know? I didn't," he cleared his throat again. "I didn't expect her to just die like that, ya know?"
He glanced at me, expecting some sort of the reply, but I had nothing to say. I was aware of him watching me like he was waiting to see something on my face and he hadn't seen it yet. I didn't know what he wanted to see, or how to show it to him, or what to say, and he turned his head away.
"She used to wear her brother's shirts. I didn't know that," he said at last, and once we had walked for a long time without saying anything, he admitted it. "I cried at the funeral."
I gripped Greg's chin in my hand and turned his head to face me. I stared into his eyes, and pushed his limp hair off his forehead. I held his face in both my hands now, and I grimaced. Greg hadn't even cried at Warrick's funeral. Fuck. What did she mean to him?
My heart dropped into my stomach, and I had this sudden image of a rock falling into a bottomless pool of water and hardly making a sound. I stopped touching his face, but Greg didn't move. His eyes too wide, his mouth slightly ajar, the young man stared, and I stared back.
I felt pretty bad, and even though I didn't want to think it, I thought it:
Had he fucked her?
The problem arose, really, because Russell couldn't give both of us the time off. We had approached him in his office; we'd hoped for a couple of days off so we could fly out for the funeral, but Russell reminded us, regretfully, that with Morgan and Finn out of town for a conference, the team was already down two CSIs.
Greg was sitting in one of the chairs opposite Russell's desk. His legs were crossed and he was sitting up stiffly, his hands clenched into fists and pressed hard against his thighs. I felt restless; didn't want to sit. So I stood behind Greg and gripped the back of his chair.
"You're sayin' we can't go?" I asked, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. At my words, Greg closed his eyes and grimaced, as though he'd only just understood what Russell had been implying.
"Okay," Russell said, giving in. "Okay, I think I could spare one of you."
Greg and I were silent, but when Russell said that, Greg's face took on a haunted look, and I slid my hand as subtly as I could, off the chair and onto Greg's shoulder.
"You go," I murmured, gazing down at Greg. "You knew her better."
Greg looked up at me, and bit his lip. He seemed conflicted. The truth was, I don't think either of us had the heart to go alone.
"Okay," Greg breathed into a sigh. He stood and wiped his hands on his thighs. He looked back at Russell and nodded. "Thanks boss."
"How did she die?" Russell asked, not unkindly.
"Some bastard slit her throat," I said, my voice gruff with unshed tears. I knew both Russell and Greg noticed, and I was angry now. Greg looked away.
Russell walked around his desk and put a hand on my shoulder. "You gonna be okay?" he asked. I nodded and blinked rapidly
Russell glanced at Greg, but the young man was staring at the wall. "She was a friend of yours?" Russell asked. Greg didn't react.
"Yeah," I said, wiping my eyes. "She was a CSI. She worked with us."
Greg finally looked up, his expression dazed. "Her name was Riley," he said very softly. "She was—"
And then he stopped.
"Nothing," he finally said. "Nothing. I don't know how to say it right."
We came across the tree as we were walking. The spindly acacia was dark and sinister against the light of the moon. I halted before it; it made me want to walk away in the opposite direction and leave it behind. Greg didn't seem to find it at all frightening, though, and he sank to the ground beneath it. I stood and watched the shadows of the leaves and branches play across Greg's face. Then I sighed, gave in, and sat down next to my friend.
I touched Greg's back, and felt the warmth seeping though his clothes. I touched him right between the shoulders blades, and felt the lean muscles ripple as Greg moved. He brought his knees up to his chest, and rested his cheek against his knee, with his face turned away from me. I felt his strong back and stared at the back of his head.
From this close, I could smell him. The sick smell of the airplane still clung to Greg's clothes, but beneath it was the faint scent of his cologne. I closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, breathing in Greg's scent and the vast, eternal smell of the desert night, and the lake, and the wet dirt beneath us.
I leant back, and rested my weight on my arms. I splayed out my legs and relaxed. Now I felt calm, and all that irrational fear of the tree and the shadows and the darkness seeped out of me.
"Sam missed ya, you know?" I said after much thought. It was the safest and sweetest and truest thing I could think of saying, and I knew, somehow, that Greg needed something true.
I must have done something right, because Greg turned to face me, and he smiled, really smiled. "Yeah?" Greg said.
"Mmmhmmm," I said, smiling freely. "Friday night he went right up to the front door and sat there barkin' at it for twenty minutes. And, get this, it was seven-thirty, right about the time you usually come over."
Greg chuckled softly, and played with the dirt. I watched him run his long, thin fingers through his mud. I wanted to hold Greg's hand, wanted to touch him all over, but we were at a crime scene, and anyhow, I felt there had to be some limits to my sentimentality. But Greg looked so pitiful, like a little bat, all wrapped up, all hunched over, his jacket draped around him like a cape. Like a little, blind bat who'd forgotten how to fly.
So I leant forwards and kissed Greg lightly and tenderly. It was our first kiss since Greg had left three days before, and it could have been stronger and harder and more beautiful, but instead it was soft, and ordinary, and hardly there at all.
"I feel…" Greg looked hungry but tired. "Like going for a swim."
That was all; all that Greg said, or did; all that was left a kiss, of our separation, of our grief. I felt a great, churning pain deep in my chest, but I kept my mouth shut, and all the cruel words in, as Greg slowly, and systematically stripped.
First Greg stood, and stretched; he rubbed his hands on his thighs and stared out at the water and built his resolve. And I watched… unnoticed, I watched.
Greg shrugged off his jacket—a smooth, careful roll of his shoulders that was nonchalant, but forced. He passed it to me without looking; he was still gazing very pointedly at the lake. I took his jacket and folded it neatly, and stared hard and carefully at Greg. I felt very, very small, seated on the ground with Greg looming over me, thin and tall and dark, and now slowly, ever so slowly, unbuttoning his shirt.
Greg's chin was pressed to his chest, and he stared at his fingers as they undid button after button. I stared at Greg's hair lying limp across his forehead, and at his nose and lips, and right down to his fingers as they played with the buttons, and then the sliver of hard chest and smooth skin that showed through the open shirt.
I watched the muscles in Greg's back stretch and flex as he pulled off the shirt; I saw the scars, the skin, the freckles, the body I knew well—
Then I watched Greg toss the shirt to the ground, and watched as it landed in a mess next to my hand. I kept gazing there, at the shirt, as Greg toed off his shoes, and yanked off his socks. Then I saw his pants hit the hard ground, and I dared to look at Greg's slim ankles as they stepped out of his pants. I kept my gaze fixed on Greg's belt, unbuckled, still in the belt-loops… and I thought of those pants on Greg's body. The pain in my chest was growing, and it took everything in me not to feel aroused or feel angry, though my head was screaming at me to feel both.
When I dared to look up, Greg was already halfway out to the lake. He was almost black, standing out against the light of the moon; he was so black, that it was hard to make out the outline of his boxer-briefs, and for a moment, I let myself believe Greg was naked, walking out to water at night.
I leant forwards with my elbows on my knees and watched Greg step into the water, and walk steadily into the shimmering, dark lake. Greg waded out till the water was up to his waist, and then he sank into the water, and spread his arms out across the surface. He threw his head back and stared at the sky and the stars and the distance beyond.
I fantasied about stripping down and joining the man in the water. I wanted to leave this world of death behind, and sink into the cool water and cool sand, and touch Greg's beautiful, cool skin.
But there was the crime scene, of course, and work, and the dead body. There was the steady pain in my chest, and Riley's funeral, and Greg's cold nonchalance. I rubbed my face, and folded Greg's clothes carefully and tried to breathe.
I stood and began walking back. I stopped and stared at Greg's footprints in the sand, a straight line of prints right up to the water, and I thought about how small those footprints were, how small Greg and I were, next to our little crime scene. I looked up at the great vast sky, and out into the distance at the big city lights and felt small and sick inside.
I walked alone along the shore of Lake Mead, the pain in my chest mounting. The crime scene grew nearer and nearer, and with it, life resumed, and I left Greg behind: Greg, in the lake, the pain washing off him with the water, while I walked alone along the shore of Lake Mead.
