The Happiest Place on Earth
Summary: One pill makes you larger and the other makes you small… Greg tries to alter a tragedy by going back in time. An experiment in temporal physics and storytelling. Nick/Greg implied slash.
Author's Note: This story was written in sections, and not necessarily linearly. The final product, though, is the final order of these segments. So read it forwards first, and then if you want, go ahead and read it backwards. Read it sideways if you want, if you can figure out how. And if you can figure out how to read it sideways, please let me know. The usual request of reviewing is in place. I implore you. This was fun, but hard work, and I want to know how it is received, and if it was successful, so please let me know.
IX
The incessant bells chimed fervently in his head and he imagined he was the hunchback of Notre Dame. Why was this so difficult? It should have been so easy. All he had to do was go to his clock and turn back the hands a few times until it was a few weeks before yesterday. That's the key to time traveling. If he concentrated really hard, if he took enough drugs, and if he wanted it bad enough, then that should be all he needed.
So why did this dream insist on continuing? Why did this world that he did not belong in continue to spin? Why did suns rise and moons eclipse and grass grow and clouds pass? Why did everything keep going when his mind was still back there in that warehouse? Why couldn't he remember anymore how Nick's hair looked when it was raining, or how his eyes seemed to ignite the room, or how his smile manipulated those sweet, soft lips? Why was it getting harder and harder to remember the melody of his vocal cords, and the words they used to sing?
Why was he forgetting?
Messages, messages, messages, a stream of constantly droning chants of the people who said they missed him, they needed him, they were scared for him, they were coming to take him away. Sara said they were coming to take him away today, so this was his very last chance. The voices overlapped, interrupting each other on his answering machine, swimming laps inside his head, but none of them were Nick's.
He had one last chance to beat the clock. He had one last chance to break the laws of physics. He dumped the bottle of the pills onto the table, not caring anymore which one made things faster and which one made things slow, which one made him tiny or which one made him grow, which one made it sunny or which one made it snow, or which one made him invisible and which one made him glow.
He poured them all down his throat and finished off the last of his sweet gin, the tingling sensation on his tongue leading him to believe that he had just been kissed by the hours, who had finally relented, who had finally paid their ransom, and were now free to go.
VIII
Hours bled into minutes and the seconds morphed into days. He remained staring at his wall, his eyes unseeing. Nothing was changing in his apartment. Nothing moved, if he didn't move, and there was no sound, no smells, nothing at all to imply that he wasn't frozen, that there was no such thing as time. If he could make it stop, then he could make it go backwards. And when he could make it go backwards, he would find Nick again. But that required focus, so he threw all of his attention at the wall. He might have succeeded, if there wasn't a knock on his door.
His hands flew over his ears, trying to ignore it. But it penetrated his skull like a bullet to the brain, and it was relentless. He felt on the floor for the bottle, and when he found it, he opened it and two tiny pills fell into his hand. He knew that one would make time speed up, and the other would make it slow down. The only problem was, he wasn't sure which was which.
The banging at his door intensified, so he made his choice quickly, popping one of them and then chasing it with the nearby bottle of gin. It burned his throat, but left that tingling sensation on his tongue. Time seemed to move faster, and so in a panic to counteract it, he quickly downed the second pill and it slowed again.
He moved to the door.
"When I told you to go home, I didn't mean wrap yourself in a cocoon and never see us again."
"I told you I'd break down."
"And I thought you would let me be there to pick up the pieces."
"You don't know so much, Nancy Drew."
"I'm worried about you. You look like hell; I think you should see a doctor."
"I got a doctor." He shoved the pills in her face.
"Pills aren't a substitute for human interaction."
"I want human interaction with him. I want the pills. I want to make time go… backwards."
"I thought you were just being… but you were serious, weren't you? Greg, what you're saying is impossible."
"What you're saying is Armageddon."
"You're not making sense."
"That's the first step to time traveling. Abandon all sense."
"Well, you got that right."
"I got it all right. I'm alright, everything is alright."
"How many of those have you taken?"
"They're my spaceships."
"I'm taking you to the hospital."
"I'm taking your mom to the hospital."
"Come on…"
A hand-shaped fire erupted on the skin of his arm and he yanked it away, staring at the brown-eyed harpy in fury. "You don't touch me. You don't ever touch me."
A door slammed and there was more banging. But Greg stumbled to the bathroom where he found his ear plugs and stuffed them in, and then he knew peace.
VII
"Go home."
But there was no home. There would be no home again. This was not existence, it was nonexistence. Walking through the part, pretending that he was still alive, and working on the case was the only way he knew he could keep his focus.
"If I go home, I will break down."
"Maybe you need to break down."
He wanted to say that maybe she was right. He wanted to say that he wanted to move on, but he didn't know how, not when time refused to obey him. Not when the hours strangled him, demanding their release. Not when he was all alone.
"If you don't go home of your own free will, I will have Grissom order you to go home."
He tried to walk away, leave the sunsets and the darkness far behind him, but she refused to let him escape so easily.
"Would you listen to me, Greg? We're watching you waste away. I don't remember the last time I've seen you eat. Catherine thinks you should see a doctor, find some way to…"
"I'll see a doctor."
"You will?"
"I need something to… I need something to help me figure out a way to…"
"To do what, Greg?"
"Stop time."
"Oh, sweetheart…"
"Maybe make it go backwards."
"I wish we could, Greg, I really do."
"I'm scared, Sara."
"I'm scared too, Greg. I'm fucking terrified."
"Save me?"
"I'm trying."
VI
A flash of light and he was at a funeral. Whose funeral, he was averse to remembering. Life was but a dream to him now, but not the kind you spend on rowboats in the river. He barely registered anything outside of himself. His mind was in that warehouse, beneath those boxes, lying in the blood stains among the broken bones. He went through the motions. He did his job, he catalogued evidence, he even made jokes. He pretended nothing was wrong, because nothing could be wrong if no one was dead, if nothing had changed. Time had stopped that day, and if it couldn't move forward, then neither could he.
He registered that his left hand was warmer than his right hand. It was also sweatier. This was incongruous and needed to be rectified. So he tried to move it and found it was attached to something heavy. With great effort, he moved his tired head to look down at it and saw a small, pale hand clinging to his own. Following the arm up to her shoulder, he realized the hand belonged to Sara Sidle, her face stoic as she stared at the coffin, her lips set in a strange expression. Her eyes glistened in the sunset, but not a tear smudged her makeup. Unlike Catherine on her other side, whose tears were colored black as they ran down her face silently. Catherine, though, did not move, and Sara on the other hand was trembling ever so slightly. It wouldn't have even been noticeable if he wasn't holding her hand. He wondered why she was so upset. Why was everyone so upset? No one had died. Time would make amends. Nothing was lost forever.
He wanted to tell her that, but didn't know how, so he stayed silent, choosing instead to float through this service like a ghost, because it had no meaning. Reality ceased to exist when the clock stopped ticking. This was not the world in which he belonged. Soon, he would turn back the clock, and everything would be right again.
Across the way, he could make out Warrick, his arms folded and his head tilted downward so Greg could not see his expression. Next to Warrick, Greg acknowledged Grissom, who was watching Sara intently. Greg could have been mistaken, but he swore he saw his supervisor cross himself as the coffin began to be lowered into the ground.
It was a closed casket service.
They said it was because they could not make his body look presentable.
But Greg knew it was because there was no body there at all.
V
The detective approached the CSIs as soon as he saw the two of them step out of the car. He filled them in on the details of the case, details that Greg would soon forget, though he tried to pay attention. These words were important. They were puzzle pieces, all part of the mystery that surrounded the death of this worker in this warehouse, just cataloguing wares.
Greg entered first, the name of the victim at the forefront of his mind. He never forgot their names, and he wondered if that was a bad thing. He wondered if Nick remembered the names of the victims he gave a voice to. He wanted to ask, but he decided against it. He never asked.
He quietly kneeled down beside the body, which had come to rest next to several shelves of boxes. He was on his stomach, face down in a pool of blood from a head wound. It looked to him like murder, but they couldn't be sure. The shelves were precarious; something could have easily fallen from above and struck him.
Greg glanced up at the shelves and noticed a few of the boxes were looming over the edge a distance above him. He frowned and glanced to his side, noting a stray butterfly screw on the floor. To reach those heights, the victim would have needed a ladder, one that the butterfly screw probably belonged to.
"What have you got there, Greggo?"
They were the last words he ever spoke. Greg leaned over to collect the screw, when something creaked in the warehouse. He looked around, unsure of what he was hearing, and then he heard the ominous sound of scraping against metal, and then a scream and seconds later, he was face down on the concrete floor, like the victim, spread eagled, only he was feet away from where he'd been previously. Flipping instantly onto his back he whirled around just in time to see the shelf beneath the precarious boxes give way and they came tumbling down right on top of the victim and the space where Greg had been moments ago.
Only Greg wasn't there anymore. And in one, petrifying glance that made the earth stop spinning and the sun stop rising, he saw the reason why.
He did the only thing he could think of doing, though he swore he'd stopped breathing. He screamed as loudly as he could, apathetic as to where the air in his lungs came from as he scuttled over to the disaster on all fours. Nick's hand protruded from beneath the boxes and Greg seized it with maddening ferocity. His heart jump-started when he felt Nick squeeze back, however weakly.
"Help!" he screamed again at the top of his lungs, his own voice returning to him. "HELP!" It cracked now, like it did back when he was a teenager, and he felt something stinging his eyes like acid and absentmindedly rubbed them with the back of his hand as he scrambled to his feet and tried to lift the boxes off of Nick. He recognized that they were heavy, and this chilled him, but the adrenaline pumping in his veins made his focus as sharp as a blade and he grunted as he lifted up the first box and threw it carelessly aside. Absently, he heard something shatter, but didn't care. The only broken thing he cared about was Nick.
But beneath that box was another box, and Greg lifted that too. Soon, he heard footsteps pounding against the pavement and off of the walls of the warehouse, and people were helping him, Brass in his ear demanding what happened, but Greg barely registered, and thus didn't answer, desperate to see Nick beneath the mountain of boxes.
Finally, they found the first half of his torso, the blood turning his black shirt into a wet, sticky mess. Greg was immediately on his knees again, leaving the rest of the heavy lifting to Brass and the officers as he clutched the hand of his best friend and begged him to squeeze back.
He didn't.
"No…" Greg blubbered, the acid in his eyes burning so hot he thought he might go blind. "No, no, no, Nick, please, please wake up, Nick, please—"
All the things he never asked, all the secrets he had needed to confess, all of the dreams he'd ever had, faded away in the whimper of this cacophonous catastrophe, in the bang of this tranquil travesty. They tumbled out of him through his eyes, crystal truths blazing trails down his cheeks, landing on the hand he held, the hand that wouldn't hold back.
He ran a hand through Nick's hair, suddenly wishing he hadn't left him to move the boxes, suddenly regretting leaving Nick's hands empty in his final moments, missing him fading away, just like all his secrets.
He did not move from that spot, and he did not let go of Nick's hand. He pulled the body of the Texan out from beneath the boxes, cradling the full-grown man in his lap, not seeing the twisted corpse, the shattered bones, the bloody pulpy carnage of the strong, happy person he used to be. It was a mockery of his memory, really, this fragile, broken carcass, this insulting effigy of all the years they spent together, all the laughs and burdens they had shared, the stories they had written and the fantasies they crafted.
He didn't move from that spot.
He did not let go of Nick's body.
And if time went on, then it went on without him. Because he rounded up the hours and held them hostage, demanding that they bring Nick back to him. That was his ransom. That was the price.
But nobody paid it.
IV
The car ride is uneventful, but comfortable, and the two men sat in an amicable quiet. Nick asked Greg if he wanted to turn on the radio, but the latter declined, much to the former's surprise.
"No blaring rock music?" he asked. "No heavy metal or anything like that to drown out the quiet?"
"I like the quiet," Greg whispered with a smile.
Nick scoffed. "Right," he muttered. "Because you're such a quiet person."
"No, I really do," Greg insisted. "I like that about you, Nick."
He blinked, seemingly confused as he glanced at Greg before turning back to the road. "About me?"
"Yeah…" Greg's smile grew bashful as he looked down at his knees. "I don't feel like I need to say anything with you."
When Nick did not reply, Greg glanced up and saw that the Texan's eyes were focused on the road, and his lips were set in a pensive expression. Greg had the sudden urge to know what he was thinking. But he didn't ask. He never asked.
"It's a good thing," Greg assured him.
The tiniest hint of a smile tugged at the corner of Nick's lips. "I know."
Nothing more was said after that as Greg leaned back in his chair and stared out the window at the city passing by, simply enjoying being in Nick's comforting presence. He felt safe with Nick. A part of him wanted to reach out to the Texan, maybe brush his shoulder or squeeze the back of his neck playfully. But Greg kept his hands to himself. He always kept his hands to himself.
"Do you really consider me one of your best friends?" he asked daringly, casually, as if it didn't matter at all.
Nick's expression didn't change as he sighed and he nodded. "I do, Greg," he answered. "I just wish you returned the sentiment."
Greg was incredulous. "What?"
Nick tried to shrug it off and smiled awkwardly. "You obviously don't trust me."
"Nick, that's not—"
"It's OK. I trust easily. Some consider that to be a flaw, but I don't. Others… it takes longer. And I kind of enjoy slowly gaining yours, Greg. It's kind of like a game."
Greg opened his mouth and then swiftly closed it again. He wanted to tell Nick that he trusted the Texan with his life, and so much more. He wanted to confess everything, so he would be free at last of these thoughts and hypotheticals that ran laps in his mind before he went to sleep every night. He wanted everything, but felt he had nothing to give in return.
So instead, he kept his peace and clasped his hands together, pressing them between his knees. I'll tell him on the way back, after we process. After the case, we'll talk. Maybe we'll go out for coffee. He smiled to himself. He looked forward to it.
Nick pulled over to the old warehouse. Siren lights painted the scene in blues and reds, and Brass stood stone cold by the crime scene tape, waiting to fill them in.
III
He did not sleep well when he returned home, memories of Nick's eyes at the bar tormenting him, and he wasn't sure why. Tomorrow, I'll tell him, he promised himself. Tomorrow, he'll finally know. Tomorrow all of the fear and the lies and the confusion will crumble into dust.
But tomorrow came, and tomorrow stayed, it stayed, and it stayed, and it never left, and time stopped its circular motion then, and that was when Greg knew, he knew he needed to stop time altogether. No hour would ever live past midnight on July 7th, 2007. Not without Nick.
Because the hours had held a gun beneath his chin when Nick had been buried. But when he was found, the birds still sang with the coming dawn, and the seasons still changed, summer-fall-winter-spring, and eventually the memory was buried too, beneath the snow and ice of the final frost before spring.
Because the hours had coiled around Greg's throat when Sara was missing. But when she was found, the world continued to spin and the sun continued to rise and fall, and eventually those dark hours were nothing but the blotchy spots on an old photograph taken just before sunrise.
He strode into the office in a calm mood. He was not happy, he was not depressed. It was another day, like any day, and there would, he thought at the time, be many days to follow it, days identical to it, and they would merge together in his mind. Today was not special, and today was not dangerous, or bloodthirsty, or filled with some sort of cruel vendetta against Greg. It was a day, and days, until they morph into nights, are innocent.
They received a case and Greg had no qualms. He was paired with Nick, which made him smile slightly. Maybe now, he would have the time to confess the words he had been tormenting him for years. Maybe now, he would find the voice that so often alluded him in Nick's presence, hiding away beneath the mossy stone of his façade that he maintained every day. Maybe now, he would have enough courage to strip away the falsities and shatter the charade.
Maybe today, Greg thought, I will finally be unmasked. Maybe today just might be the best day of my life.
II
"Hey, 'Rick!" a Texan drawl lazily bounced off the walls of the Las Vegas Crime lab.
His query halted and turned, holding a file in one hand and an evidence bag in the other, but he was smiling. "Nick," he greeted warmly. "What's up?"
"I'm off early," he explained. "I know a bar that's still open. Care to join me?"
Warrick seemed to contemplate this for a moment. "Nah," he said, holding up the evidence bag. "I'm knee-deep in a case right now. Just 'cause you finished yours, it doesn't mean the rest of us are done."
"I'll go," Greg chimed timidly from the doorway to the DNA lab, stealing Nick's attention.
The Texan laughed, jovially, the harmonies of it lingering in the air even after he was done. "Look at you, back in the lab. You're not getting nostalgic on me, are you?"
"I was dropping off evidence," Greg snapped defensively, but with a quirky smile. "But I could really go for a beer."
Nick clapped his hands together. "Perfect!" he cried. "Let's go get some beer."
The consequence of this conversation was that they ended up being the only two people in a smoky dive with dim red lights at two in the morning. They sat at the bar, laughter permeating the warm July night air as they sipped at their beers, telling old stories and new jokes. Finally, Nick downed the rest of his beer and slammed the glass on the bar, a soft smile resting on his features as if it had always belonged there, as if it had found its home at last.
"Thanks for coming with me tonight, Greg," he said fondly, staring at his empty glass.
Greg answered him with a half shrug. "I know you would have preferred Warrick—"
He was cut off by the expression of shock on Nick's face as the Texan turned to look at him. "You think you were second-choiced?"
Greg squirmed awkwardly in his chair. "No…" he lied. "I just know how close you and Warrick are."
Nick cocked his head to the side and favored Greg with a lopsided smirk. "I like to think we're pretty close too, you know." He always seemed to see right through Greg, and the younger man wondered if he was really that transparent.
"I know that," he said, trying to laugh it off. "But Warrick's your best friend."
"I can't have two best friends?" Nick inquired, his eyebrows shooting up.
Greg's jaw dropped, but he closed it quickly to hide his reaction. He coughed and turned away from Nick, but it was too late. The older man had already witnessed his moment of weakness.
Greg felt something pat him hard on the back, and a hand squeeze his shoulder. He felt the heat creep up in his cheeks and hunched over his empty glass, gripping it with both hands.
"What's the matter with you, G? You seem really tense."
"I'm not sure…" Greg answered honestly, still staring at his glass. He tried to force his face to pale again, and when he gathered his confidence, he turned back to Nick. "I just enjoy being here with you, I guess. We don't do this nearly as often as we should."
Nick nodded. "We don't," he admitted. "But we should. Let's do it tomorrow night, too, after shift. What do you say?"
But Greg turned away from him again and his finger began to trace the rim of the glass. "I have this funny feeling, Nick…"
"What feeling?"
"I'm not sure, it's just a feeling… I can't describe it. But it's been bothering me all day."
Greg heard the scratching of chair legs against the floor and he could sense that Nick was closer now because he could smell the faint musk of stale cologne mingled with the bittersweet scent of sweat and something undetectable.
"Talk to me, G," Nick urged, his voice quiet but filled to the brim with sincerity.
Greg turned and opened his mouth to answer him, but they were so close now that it sent shivers down his spine. He pushed his chair back so fast he nearly tipped it over. He shook his head vehemently and slammed down a few dollars on the bar before leaping to his feet off the chair. He wasn't sure what had been so electric to shock him into the state of fear he was presently in, but he knew it wasn't right, and he needed to go home, go to sleep, and think about all of this later. Maybe then the world would make sense.
"I'll see you at shift tomorrow," he told him, before exiting the bar.
I
"Talk to me, G," Nick urged, his voice quiet but filled to the brim with sincerity.
Greg turned and opened his mouth to answer him, but they were so close now that he was suddenly struck breathless, the air from his lungs stolen by Nick's hungry dark eyes. He snapped his mouth shut and a furtive smile stretched his lips. "It's kinda that same tingly-numb feeling you get when your foot falls asleep? Only it's encompassed my whole body, you know? Like all my muscles are on strike."
Nick's hand slipped across the bar towards Greg, who was still gripping his empty glass. "What do you reckon that means, Greg?" He had a playful, fiery spark to his murky eyes. This was a game, and for once Greg wasn't afraid to play.
"I dunno," he said offhandedly. "Maybe we're dead."
Nick's eyebrows shot up. "Or maybe we're finally alive."
Greg's gaze provoked a silent dare of Nick's eyes, which were swirling with stories he would never know, thoughts that would never be voiced, truths that would never again flicker in the space of understanding between them, if only for an instant. And it was in that moment of clarity that Greg finally knew exactly what was going on, staring into those soft, eager, lively brown eyes that were begging to be of some help to him, as if Nick hadn't already done enough.
He reached up a tender hand, and he was not afraid. He reached up a soft, gentle hand, and he was not confused. He delicately brushed Nick's cheek, and he was not uncomfortable. His thumb grazed the bristled edges of Nick's hair and he cocked his head to the side. He was not alone.
"I was thinking we should forget about going to work tomorrow."
Nick blinked. A curious smile molded his mouth into an expression of intrigue. "What? Why?"
"I don't think it's a good idea to go into work is all," Greg explained. "I understand it now. That's what my tingly feeling is all about. We shouldn't go to work. Nothing good will come of it."
Nick's hand closed the chasm between them as it reached for the glass Greg clutched and softly covered it, his touch cool and slithery like water sliding across his skin. "And what do you propose we do instead?"
He shrugged, noncommittally. "I was thinking that maybe we could drive to California. Go to Disney Land."
Nick cocked an amused eyebrow. "Disney Land?"
"It's the happiest place on earth, isn't it?" said Greg. "I think that the two of us could do with a little happy."
S
Somewhere in time, a deal was made, and the hours released him from their deadly, vice-like grip, and he glided across wide open space. A ransom was paid, and hostages ran free, scampering home to their children, and a wave of relief washed over all those involved. His goal achieved, he closed his eyes and faded away.
X
"He's nonresponsive, I'm sorry."
Sara blinked at the paramedic, as if she hadn't heard quite right, but the ringing in her ears, that shrill, incessant high pitched whine, only served to underline the hideously sharp consonants and empty vowels that tumbled from his mouth after that.
"He's dead."