Author's Note: Yep, another unplanned plot bunny. This one actually came to me on the way back from soccer. I actually really enjoyed writing it, but I don't know how to characterize it. Angst? Drama? Greg's thoughts?
Anyways—I really want to know people's opinions on this piece. Anything you didn't like, things you did like, and things that just didn't seem to fit … I want to hear about it all. Criticism and other people's thoughts are what make me a better writer.
All mistakes are mine because I like to tweak things here and there, and 'cause I'm not perfect.
Oneshot. Fluff/Drama. Nick/Greg. Greg's POV—first person. Slash.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned, except Ms. Degan.
Acknowledgements: As usual, my thanks goes out to Amanda for editing and proofreading.
Summary: For a couples' appreciation course, Greg is finagled into writing an essay on why he loves Nick Stokes.
Why I Love Nick Stokes
an essay by Greg Sanders
Note: I apologize in advance, Ms. Degan, because I don't remember the last time I wrote an essay. It was probably years ago, and, seeing as how you're also a high school teacher, the poor format may offend you slightly. Like I said, I apologize in advance. You also said to speak from the heart, and because you said that, there might be some slight ridiculing of your course in my essay. No offence to you or anything, I just don't see why I had to be here, but I'll explain more of that in a later paragraph.
For starters, I don't really know if everyone out there has experienced true love. Well, I'm sure not every person on the earth has found their true love yet, but they might and they might not. I won't get into my views on this, but I will say that there are some decisions that could affect whether or not you meet your soul mate, and I do believe that taking the job offer at the Las Vegas crime lab was a decision that changed my life in many different ways, the biggest way was that it led me straight to Nick Stokes, the man I've loved without regret for the past eight years.
Firstly, I guess I will explain what I think a soul mate is. I believe that a soul mate is a person who is the mate for your soul. Horrible definition, but I don't really know how else to say it. The two people just fit together. They were made for each other. "He is the peanut butter to my jelly" could be one way of putting it, no matter how lame that is. Sometimes with love, there are times I've regretted loving someone. I wish I could take back all that idle time where I was dreaming about one person when I could have been out there dating others, but that doesn't happen with my soul mate. No matter how many years have passed while I was just wasting time, trying to get the nerve to ask Nick out, I never regretted it. Not once.
Regret is something that can tear a couple apart, even two who are deeply in love. Before I had even met Nick, there were times when I had regretted doing or saying something to a partner. I remember this time when a girl I was dating (her name escapes me) said that she loved me. I reciprocated, saying that I loved her too. Within seconds, I felt horrible because that wasn't how I truly felt. After that, things got awkward very fast. We had only been going out a few months.
With Nick, the first time we said "I love you" might've been the best part of our relationship so far. We had just been out for a walk around the park by his house when we heard some meowing up a large willow tree, down near the pond. We both looked up and saw a tiny silvery gray kitten looking at us, his yellow eyes shining in the dying light. Nick turned to me, his face almost in despair. He told me that he was going up to get it, but I stopped him. He was wearing his good pants, and I didn't want him ruining them.
He laughed outright at me. "It's no big deal," he said. I shook my head, telling him that I would go up and get the cat. I can still remember the shocked look on his face. His eyes were wide, and his mouth was a little 'o' of surprise.
I did end up getting the kitten down, and Nick kept her, but that isn't really the ending of my tale. As soon as both the kitten and myself had gotten down safely, Nick threw his arms around me.
"What was that for?" I had asked, knowing that I was blushing.
All he said was, "I love you."
So I'm pretty sure I'm getting kind off the topic of why I love Nick, but you, the reader, might be getting a better grasp on our relationship. We are very loving, but I'm more of a PDA person, if the 'P' stands for private. I'm also not much of a touchy feely kind of guy, but Nick definitely makes up for that. It's almost like we're ying and yang. We have our separate interests, and work keeps us pretty busy. That might be why he wanted us to go to this course.
I still don't honestly know for sure why he wanted us to go into this course. Whenever I ask him, he just gives me a stare, almost as if I should know the answer. I believe that Nick thinks that we aren't spending much time together anymore, and I can see why he thinks that. At work we have to keep up a professional relationship, and once we get home we both go to sleep. We get up after about eight hours, get cleaned up, eat, then we repeat. At first, we used to look forward to our time spent at home, and we would try to incorporate each other into whatever we did in our spare time. That doesn't really happen anymore. It's almost as if we went back to the way we operated when we were single and living at our separate homes. We still talk and act like a couple at home, but that sort of thing happens more often than not when we both get the night off. I'm sure I don't have to spell out how often that happens, because it obviously doesn't happen very much. At all.
This also brings me to this essay. First of all, I don't think I actually grasped the topic of it. I'm sort of rambling on and on about things that don't really relate, but I'm hoping that (somehow) this will make sense to whomever is reading it. Secondly, I don't see how you can actually put into words why you love someone.
Why do I say this? Well, because it's almost impossible to say why I love Nick Stokes. There are so many different reasons, some ranging from the way tingles race up and down my body whenever he happens to brush up against me, to the way he folds his socks right after they come out of the drier. I love the way he talks in his sleep, and the way he whispers my name into my ear when we're cuddling. I love the way he frowns when he reads something in a book that isn't factual, and I love the way he holds me when I need someone there. I love everything about him.
Of course, there are some things about Nick that I love more than others, like the way he is always there. There's a solidness about him, this feeling like nothing bad could ever happen to him, or me whenever I'm with him. When he holds me in his arms, I just want to stay like that forever, and I know every person in a relationship says that, but for me it's the honest truth. There's safety and comfort and peace in Nick's arms, and I don't seem to find that in any other place. Not in my home, not at work, not even in my own bed. Well, unless Nick's holding me in bed, then I guess the last one would work. Anyways—like I said, when he's hugging me or cuddling me or kissing me, I feel as if the world's stopped and it's just us. There's no more death, no more murder, and no more heavy metal bands splitting up. It's just us two, and it's perfect.
I know you said I shouldn't write about physical aspects, but I couldn't just leave out those parts of Nick. See, the first thing I fell in love with were his eyes. Call me shallow all you want, but when I first looked at him, his eyes drew me in. They are the richest brown eyes I have ever seen, and I don't think I'll ever see another pair of eyes like Nick's. When it's quiet and it's just us two, I can look into Nick's eyes and feel this immeasurable sense of peace. It's almost like being held in his arms, but only by looking into his eyes, if that makes any sense. When he's in pain and he doesn't think he can get the words out, all I have to do is look into his eyes. It's been said that someone's eyes are a window into their soul, and I have been a firm believer in this statement ever since I met Nick. Even years back when I used to work as a lab tech, I could tell how he felt after a shift, just by glancing quickly into his eyes. Everything was written there—the pain of seeing another person killed, the horror of what was happening to humanity, and the sadness of only being able to bring about closure, not stop the actual murder.
Another thing I love about Nick is how he's handled being a CSI for the past several years. Even after all the horrifying incidences he's been through, he still manages to smile every day. He can still laugh and joke and tease. He hasn't let it get him down entirely, and I'm hoping that a complete burnout isn't going to happen any time soon. Being a CSI really takes away your faith in the human race. Death is obviously commonplace when at work, and this is at the hand of another human being. Whenever I feel the need to rant and rave about humanity, Nick's always there to listen. He just listens; he doesn't even feel the need to say anything back. He's also there when a murder hits too close to home and when I need a shoulder to lean on.
I could go on and on about the little aspects of why I love Nick, but I don't think I should. If I tried to say everything, I'd be here forever. There's the way he laughs, the way he smiles, the way his eyes light up when I say something funny, the way he holds my hands when I'm cold, the way he snuggles up to me while we're sleeping, the way he lets me blast my music while we're getting ready for work, the way he lets me keep my side of the bed messy, and the way he keeps his side tidy. There's also the way he burns the KD for dinner every once in a while, the way he secretly hides a Toby Keith poster in our closet, the way he runs his fingers through my hair, the way he kisses me, the way he looks at me … in short, the way Nick behaves makes me crazy for him.
Another reason why I love Nick Stokes is because he thinks he can actually save the world. If I had to give him a super power, I would just let him be himself—he's already out there doing all he can. He works with a suicide prevention hotline, he helps drive cancer patients to their appointments, he donates regularly to charity, he gives food to the food bank, and he always has an ear open in case anyone out there is crying out for help. I wouldn't call Nick a saint, seeing as how I don't believe there are any more people like that out there, but he comes pretty close. He never expects anything in return, and I know he would gladly give his life to save someone else.
That aspect of Nick's character also scares me a lot of the time, but he doesn't know that. Even so, I can't tell him to stop being himself. The most I can do is tell him to be careful, and he always is. Sometimes he gets into trouble, but I'd like to think that his friends and family will be there to see him through it.
The worst time in my life was probably when Nick was kidnapped, almost three years ago now. I won't go into how I felt, because I don't even remember what was going through my mind during that time. All I wanted was to have Nick back, and this was even during the time when we weren't together. We had broken up a few weeks previous, some bad blood between us, but I completely forgot about our whole fight when I heard that he'd been kidnapped.
The only part that I actually remember is how I felt when I heard what'd happened, and how I felt when we found him. Right after Sara called to tell me what had happened, I felt as if I'd been punched in the stomach. I swear I blacked out for a second, gasping for breath, but in reality I don't think I had. My knees felt weak, my heart heavy, and I wanted to throw up. There were tears hiding just out of sight, but I kept them at bay. I knew that Nick needed me to be strong for him, even after all we'd said during our fight. Of course those were just words, Nick would have seen through them. He knew that I was out there, working hard to get him back to us. Because I loved him, along with everyone else, and I needed him back.
When I saw Nick trapped in that coffin, feet below the surface, I felt like murdering the person who had put him in there. I could hear him screaming and see him thrashing around. All I could do was stand there, helpless. Helpless, that is, until I was told to go run and grab the fire extinguisher. I took off, willing myself to run faster, sprint harder. Nick needed me, and I could actually do something to help him.
As the ambulance took Nick, Warrick, and Catherine to the hospital, I felt as if everything in my life had changed. My whole point of view on life. I realized at that moment that I couldn't hold a grudge just because of some words that had hurt me. I couldn't keep Nick out of my life just because of some stupid fight that didn't even matter. I loved him, and I had to be with him.
We both went through a lot during the time right after the kidnapping. Many tears were shed, not just his but mine as well; I spent a lot of my time holding him while he slept, however infrequently that happened, and I also spent my time waking him up from his nightmares. They were always the same: He was locked in a glass box with one person on the outside. His air was running out, and he had the same objects in his dream hell that he had had in his coffin. A gun, a few glow sticks, and a tape recorder. In his dream, his air would be running out while the person on the outside would watch him die. At the last moment before he woke up, the murderer on the outside of the glass would magically turn into me, and I would beat furiously on the glass, trying to break in. Nick said that the worst part of the dream was seeing me: hearing my screams, my shouts, my curses; seeing the tears roll down my cheeks, see the anguish and horror in my eyes; see me trying to break in, but I never succeeded.
After I had woken Nick up from his nightmares, he would cry on my shoulder. In his dream, he said, the gun would seem to talk to him, saying that it would be painless, that it would make everything easier. He always got close to pulling the trigger in his dreams, but he never did.
I'm not going to go into how close I (and everyone else) had gotten to losing Nick the night he was kidnapped. Not just because he was out of air, but also because the call of the gun was almost too much for him. When Warrick dove into the pit, hammering on the plexi-glass coffin, yelling at Nick to put down the gun, my heart stopped. Almost literally.
A lot could be said here, but all I'm going to say is that we had someone on our side that night. I don't know if Nick has an angel looking down on him (or maybe another CSI does), but I am glad that someone is watching out for us. Otherwise, we might not have found him. His air was gone, the gun was in his mouth, and we were there to save him.
There are a lot of reasons why I love Nick Stokes. I love him because he is imperfect, because he shows me how to be a better person, because he is someone I can look up to, because he is my mentor (both in life and at work), and because he is my best friend. I trust Nick with my life, and I'm sure it's the same for him. We have a bond that can't be destroyed. He's the person I want to fall asleep with every night, and he's the person I want to wake up with every morning. He's my life. I may not believe in a higher power, but when I see Nick, I think there must be a God, just because he put Nick in my life. Yes, call it corny, but that's just how I feel.
And this is for Nick, if he ever ends up reading my essay: I love you for you.