Rating: NC-17 (Language and sex)
Disclaimer: I do not own CSI or any of its characters.

A/N: This is the first of I don't know how many chapters yet, alternating POV from several characters, and sort of song-fic (the titles of the chapters will help you along!) I have NOT written fan-fic in a LONG TIME so reviews are MORE than welcome! Hugs in advance!

Chapter One: On my own….

GREG:

I have a photographic memory. It has served me well in my lifetime. I never forget things. I breezed my way through high school, college, graduate school and all the way to the top of the field in DNA analysis by the age of 22 without ever having to study. It has also caused me a lot of pain. I don't even have to close my eyes to remember every tragedy of my lifetime from bitter teasing and bullying of my childhood to the minute details of every instant of the lab explosion that left me scarred for life, or the beating I took the night that I killed Demetrius James, or the pain-filled terror of watching Nick buried in a glass coffin knowing that for all of my incredible intellect I could do nothing to save him. This gift can be bittersweet, as well. I can see vividly the look of relief and love on Grissom's face when we found Sara in the desert, weak but alive. I recall that moment, from time to time, when I want to remember her. She is gone now, finding herself, and I can only imagine that Grissom is dying inside without her here. She is my friend, and I don't have many of those, but she is Grissom's world. I wonder, sometimes, if he would be better off with my gift, able to relive the moments of happiness that they shared, or if it would only make him more miserable as it does me. The hardest part of this gift, for me, lies in the fact that I don't even have to conjure up the memory of every time my soul has connected, if only briefly, to the person who is the center of my world. It's hard when love goes unrequited, but it is what it is. You see, my world, my heart, and my soul belong to one person, but he will never know this because he doesn't feel the same way about me, and it would destroy the relationship that we do have. I know this for a fact, but it doesn't make the memories any easier to bear. I can recall, with perfect clarity, every time his hand has touched my shoulder. I can feel the tingle of electric shock waves coursing through every skin cell and burning, me to the core just from the touch of his fingertips on my still clothed skin. Even when he is nowhere near me, I can smell his musky scent, the sweetness of his breath as he leans over me to verify a result. I can see, clearly, the flashed "I love you" that he never meant to give me. I can relive every conversation that we have ever had with perfect clarity until it makes me want to collapse in my bed and cry myself to sleep in the darkness of my room, shrouded against the daylight by thick blackout drapes that hide the sunlight but cannot keep away the pain and loneliness that are my constant companions.

I'm getting morbid, I fear, tragically so. Memories of moments with him are not just tragedies. They don't always make me wish that I could take a razor and slit my wrists, leaving behind all that I can never have. They are also fuel for some pretty powerful masturbatory fantasies. Just one small recollection of an innocent touch is all I need. My own vivid imagination fills in the rest just fine. I can take those fingers, placed gently on my shoulder and move them skillfully down my arm to intertwine themselves with mine as his hand guides me to the bedroom. We are always silent in my fantasies. No words need ever be spoken. His eyes lock with mine and I can see all that I need to see within them. His love is endless, and we move as one being. His lips claim mine and our tongues battle against each other for control as the need to consume one another becomes more and more urgent. Clothes fall to the side, just like they do in cheap romance novels, and we are naked against each other, our erections sliding together, friction making us moan with hunger. Then, he is inside of me, taking me, pounding hard against me in animalistic lust. We cry when we come together, screaming each others names against the silence. Then, when we are sated, he slips from me and I feel the emptiness of his loss. But soon, his arms surround me and I am safe and whole and loved. We fall asleep that way, or at least I do, since I am really alone and it is only my climax that wets the sheets. But, for the moment at least, I feel complete.

OK, so the details are a bit sketchy, and you probably think that I sound like one of the aforementioned dime store romance novels, except that all of those feature horny male heterosexuals deflowering innocent female virgins. Well, the truth of the matter is that this is exactly where my fantasies come from, and aside from the heterosexual part, they actually don't fall to far from the apple tree of truth. Yes, that's right, Greg Sanders, boy genius, soon to be forty year old virgin. Well, not quite forty yet, but you get the idea. It's not that I haven't tried. In fact, trying was how I first realized that I was gay. You see, there was this one time, at band camp…..OK, bad cinematic allusion, I'm sorry. Actually, it was at science camp. There was this girl, and she was just off the cart. We were both sixteen and a bit more "unusual" than the rest of the science geeks, she with her Goth make-up and jet clack hair, me with my two-toned spiky mop and tragically loud-colored taste in shirts. We hit it off right away. In fact, we spent the entire summer joined at the hip. On the last night of camp, I decided I needed to make my move, so I kissed her. She kissed me back and we made out for a while, but nothing was happening, if you know what I mean. It was nice, but I wasn't turned on at all. Well, Abby, being a bit more worldly and a heck of a lot more honest than me at that age simply seized the opportunity (after first seizing my flaccid cock and getting no reaction at all aside from a panicked squeak from me) to tell me what I probably already knew. "Greg," she said, "You're gay. Just accept it and go find yourself a nice hot boy to play with. Oh, and when you find him, can I watch?" Yep, that's my Abby. A decade later and she's a hot shot scientist with the NCIS in DC, I'm in Vegas working as a CSI, and we are still the best of friends. And she still wants to watch. Only the second thing I found out about myself is that not only do I want to have sex with men, I want to do it in a relationship. Unfortunately, I want to do it in a relationship with Nick Stokes, handsome, charming, Texas accent to die for and also a coworker and heterosexual as heterosexual can get. Now, do you see why my life sucks?

So this is why I am sitting at home alone on my night off staring at a computer screen playing game number 1346 of solitaire with about one one millionth of my attention actually on the game (remember that photographic memory? –I've played this hand before) and the rest wandering off about Nick Stokes and the impossibility of ever having him in my life as anything more than a co-worker and a casual friend. I wonder what he is doing tonight. We both have off, since we've both been putting in doubles and triples almost every other shift since Warrick was killed. There's another memory I can't erase – the look on Nick's face when he lost his best friend. I wished that I could hold him, let him cry, ease his grief a little. But we're not that close. I keep thinking that I could pick up the phone, call him, as a friend, you know. But what would I say? Besides, he's probably off on a hot date or something. He probably has his arms around a busty blonde girl right now and she's doing her best to make him forget everything but her. I am just getting lost in my own sorrows and getting morbid again when my AIM screen flashes.

"Do you want to play a game?"

"Hey, Abs! Wassup? Let me guess, Saw FIVE is it this time?"

"Yep. Just got back from the theater, but it sucked. They should have quit like three movies ago before it got stupid. Anyway, just some rare down time. Surprised to see you online. Feels like we haven't chatted in forever"

"Yeah. It's been hell"

"So, what r u up2, Greggo?"

I hate it when she calls me that, because it makes me think of Nick, even though she called me that long before he ever entered my life, but I let it slide. "Oh, not much. Contemplating quantum mechanics, the usual"

"Thinking about Nick, again, eh? LOL"

"No"

"UhHuh….so, do you want to play a game?"

"What game would that be?"

"Oh, I don't know….I could be Nick and you could be you and we could have hot IM sex"

"Forget it Abby. I am NOT going to use my unrequited love to fuel your gay boy fantasies!"

"Are you naked, Greggo? I can't wait to get my lips around that big, huge cock of yours"

"Forget it, Abs. I'm serious. And besides, Nick would NOT talk like that."

"Oh really, how can you be so sure? What if he called you on the phone tonight, just to see if you were alone. To see if maybe, just maybe, you were all alone in your apartment thinking about him."

"Because he doesn't. He doesn't talk at all. In my dreams, that is. He just shows me that he loves me. That's all."

"What if I told you that I cast a love spell on you, Greggo? That I discovered the secrets of ancient Wiccan goddesses and I put them to use on you, my best friend in the whole world, so that you wouldn't have to stay a virgin forever?"

"I'd tell you that too much soda destroys tour brain cells. Now let it alone, I mean it."

I was getting aggravated and it's hard to express that clearly in an instant message, but Abby knows me pretty well, fortunately.

"Sorry, babe. It was just a thought"

"Yeah, a bad thought"

"LOL. Look, I really am sorry, OK, sexy? I gotta run. I just got paged. Gibbs needs something done and he needs it done yesterday. Take care of you, OK? And pick up the phone every once and a while"

"Will do, Abs"

And then she was gone, just as quickly as she had arrived, leaving me alone in my contemplations again. It was nice to talk to Abby, even though she did have some off the wall ideas of fun. At least it was better than suffering alone in silence. I was thinking about her and about how much fun we had together over the years even though we hardly saw one another because of our jobs when the phone rang, so I thought, more than likely, it was her calling to see if I was locked in the bathroom jerking off. But the caller ID said Nick and I stared at the phone like it was something from outer space. I was frozen in place. I couldn't answer it.