In The Flesh

Summary:

"Shut up, Greg. You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

Disclaimer:

I don't own CSI and the characters.

In The Flesh

Sometimes I thought, or more like imagined, as he passed by my office, he'd stop to look at me for a while. For a while. I'd work on the details of the crime as always, but I'd never missed the outline of his shadow even from a distance. I remembered his shirts: The checkered ones were always blue, and the beige ones were mostly of linen material. Always, always jeans and an old black leather belt. His head, he wore it so gorgeously. As if that head was made only for his build, and his build alone. (I'd seen plenty of decapitated bodies to realize that not all head are built to fit with the bodies that bear them.

Sometimes he'd call Catherine halfway, to notify her of some newfound facts. The best thing was that when Catherine tells him to "consult it with Greg." I would smile, then hide it all the time. The time he reached my room my face would be normal again, sometimes already with the serious expression on my face.

"Work on it, Greg," he'd say. Sometimes he'd pat my shoulder too.

I always hid the smile. Always hid it. The smile I gave him all the time was never the one intended for him. It was the one intended for the newfound facts.

Long day of works. All the time a long, long day.

Sometimes I thought that all of us are devoting our lives so that we'd be able to look at the killers in their eyes.

I longed for something else to devote myself to. Not some random pretty faces. I wanted a devotion that somehow could resemble the passion attached in the investigating works. A devotion that was not pure, because it would always be mixed with passion and challenging views.

"Work on it, Greg."

Today was the same. He walked in, said it, patted on my shoulder. Everything happened in a very brief moment, like a flash of neon against the wall. He came, he left. Came, then left. He was wearing the checkered indigo shirt today, his favorite color, I always assumed. A pair of washed-out Levi's and that old leather belt.

"Hey Nick, a moment please?"

"Yeah?" he turned his head then looked over his shoulders at me.

His eyes were a strange pair: Piercing, yet calming. Those eyes were nonchalant, but never lazy. The latter phrase was first spoken by David.

"This small piece of wood has a very small, almost unseen string, attached to it," I walked towards him and showed him the piece, "Here, look—yeah, that one over there, you see? The indigo string."

He thought for a while. Whenever he went into a deep, but short-period thinking phase, he always touched his chin with his right hand for a while, before shoving it back to the pocket of his jeans.

"More like a fiber of a sweater. The material… wool."

"Anything to ID the John Doe."

"Anything to ID the John Doe," he replied with a smile.

He walked out of the office. Once again I was alone. Alone, with the microscope and the chemical apparels.

The case ended a week later, only to figure out that it was another suicide that was arranged to look like a homicide. Those people impressed me: They knew that their lives were about to end, yet there they are, trying to make the last moments of their lives looking some kind of dramatic. Some scenarios were even really well-arranged. Once there was a man who shot himself under water so that his ex-wife would be able to gain benefits from the insurance.

Half-past eleven. I tidied my books, notes, threw them into the large bag I always carried home after work then put on my jacket. I always passed by his office whenever I walked towards the exit door. I had never thought that the place I'd chosen the first time I was placed here would benefit me this way. This way: to see Nick, as he cleaned up his desk. As he read several pages of a book wearing a glass under the warm reading light. As he crossed and re-crossed his legs. As he stretched his shoulders after being slouched for a long time. I'd stand there in the unseen angle. Besides, the darkened office added another thing to my benefit. The benefit of being unseen by him.

He sipped on his coffee carefully. Café Americano from Starbucks, venti size. He always drank it black. The best thing about being a crime scene investigator was that I could also examine things belonging to a living person, Nick, with a precision as good as working on the personal belongings of a dead man. Those things determine personality. The empty venti-sized cup with a black-coffee residue near the bottom, some had sipped through the bottom folds, had uncovered to me his personality. He drank a lot of them, too, and soon I was the only person who knew that Nick was secretly struggling with adrenaline rushes.

Nick was still thumbing through his book. A pocket-sized one, yellowed pages, even browned near the bindings and the gutter. Two days ago he said he'd just gotten a copy of Faulkner's Sanctuary in a nearby used-book store. That must be the one he was holding now.

I was also soon the only person who knew that he also had an eccentric, idealistic side.

This time he knew that I was there. He did. He closed his book then, without even turning off the light, he stood up and stepped outside. Still, still the same indigo shirt from the morning. His fingers were trembling, ever so slightly.

"Up for an extra night shift, Greg?"

I said: No. I am going home. I asked him about the coffee. He said the dosage was just fine. I smiled. He did the same. Shrugged his shoulders. Smiled again. "Your hands are trembling."

He raised them up before my eyes and, firming them up a bit before moving them closer towards me, he told me that none of them was trembling. He always liked that, Nick, to gave or create the impressions that we were just imagining things. Said he hated having people caring about him. He was already a cold person, he said, with a heart that couldn't bleed, no, never its shade was indigo.

He never knew, Nick, that my mind changed colors every time he passed by the window.

I reached out. Before that I'd pushed the sleeves of my sweater up. I reached out and touched his neck, his ears. He said nothing, Nick, he was just looking at me. Looking, as if I had made him slightly wrong in the head. I said: This was a proper punishment for someone who liked to create sensations of illusion. The place was dark, dark. I started to stop caring about whether we were the only persons here. Nick too. He said: "If only you'd done this earlier, Greg."

He pulled me closer. He ran his hands on my back, slowly lifting up my sweater. I could feel the warmth of his flesh through the thinness of my shirt. His thighs were brushing against mine. He stood so firmly, as if trying to tell me that I would never fall. Never, as long as I'd rely on him. During the work the firmness and the trust were being displayed implicitly. This time: Explicitly. His breath was on my neck. The warmth! I held him even closer, Nick, and I was feeling his back. He head such well-developed spine. Probably that was why he had such impressive carriage.

His breath smelled of black coffee. Sugarless, as he always preferred it to be. The traces were still on his lips. Now they got on my neck too…

The breath smelled better than his cheap cologne.

"You're ridiculous," I said, "you could afford a three-hundred-grand house but not a decent Boss perfume?"

He laughed. The embrace had reached its zenith. I was feeling up to the point where Nick's body had melted onto mine. His organs were mine. His hair. His back. I almost thought that it would even be possible to control his body using my brain. because his body was mine. So attached to mine that it was slowly becoming mine.

He kissed my ears and told me that regardless of the cheap cologne I couldn't stop noticing him. Said he'd realized this all along. "You're one of the best investigators around, Greg, but about such things you're kind of making yourself dumb." Spoken over a light chuckle.

I started unbuttoning his indigo shirt, then unbuckled his belt. He took me to his office.

Turning the reading light off, he lifted up my shirt, unbuttoned my jeans. He kept kissing me, Nick. On the neck. The nose. The eyebrows. The closed eyelids. I was struggling against the natural impulse to moan too loud. He kissed my chest. My stomach. The firmness of his build was rubbing against mine. Once again it was his warmth covering me. Then he kissed my nose again. The forehead also.

But never, never the lips.

I was lying on his desk. Out movements had caused some of his things to fall down. Papers were scattered on the floor. Sometimes his hands would stamp on the glass desk before touching me over and over again. The first time I came it was in his hands. The fluid went all the way to his thighs. The area between them also. He smiled. Said that he'd make me come over and over again.

It happened.

I just came. And came. And came. The room was dark, with the exceptions of the city lights outside. The lights that were filtering through the wide windows. Then there was the clear summer sky. I didn't know. Our clothes were on the floor. Like my flesh, mingled with his. I was always a realist, but for the first time in my life I thought I was being drugged. Drugged by something stronger than LSD. It was the feeling of his flesh against mine. The heat of his sweat-covered body as it rubbed against mine. On the stomach. The thighs. Then the back. He was embracing me from the back most of the times. He'd sit me on the table if he wanted to run his hands all over my body.

Nick: "I just want to taste it. Taste it, Greg, rather than easing myself inside you."

My figure was really small compared to his. I looked down again. Down, towards the clothes those were on the floor. They were being pushed away even by the slightest movements of his feet. He was holding me on the waist. His chest was against my back. Sweated, panting. Stronger, stronger than LSD. Our clothes were there, mingled with each others.

I whispered: "I guess most criminals would confess, Nick… If you would only give this thing for free."

"Shut up, Greg. You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Yeah," I said, "oh yeah. Up to the point someone could point a shotgun at me and I'd still be able to smile."

He laughed.

Then I heard a long thudding sound, like a fat stack of paper hitting the ground.

But then it was just another distraction.

We owned the night. The darkness. The madness of Vegas also.

"Oh boy, Greg, that was hot!"

David was on the way to the doctor's office when he patted me lightly on the back. When I turned to look at him, he was smiling so wide I thought someone had torn off his jaw a few millimeters back.

"What? The technique used in the murder was hot you mean?"

He still had the wide grin on his face. Then ever so slowly it started turning into a smile. An understanding one.

"No. You were hot, Greg." he was saying it with a shaky voice, as if trying hard to suppress a laughter. "Traces of semen had been found in Nick Stokes' office earlier this morning. There were two unknown males there last night. The first trace belongs to an unknown white male, and those traces—well, they had, apparently, undergone some harsh efforts of cleaning. There was also a sweater on the hallway near the office—"

I almost choked. I saw stars. If someone about the size of Ray bumped onto me right now I'd surely hit the floor face-first.

"Shut up, David!"

"I dropped a fat stack of paper, anyway. It must've been such a disturbance."

He laughed.

"Dave, man, I'll do anything to keep things from leaking out, alright?" I grabbed his shoulders and looked into his eyes. He was still trembling because of the suppressed laughter. "Those 'oh boy's are disgusting, anyway. Cut if off."

"But you did say it a lot. Oh boy, Nick, oh boy—"

I let out a desperate dry laughter.

"Look, Dave, this is not a joke. I've been in love with Nicky for a long time. Last night I was given a chance. You may take this as a joke, but please, please, don't ever take it outside. I'd be doomed."

Nick had just arrived. He was wearing a beige linen shirt and a pair of black jeans. He waved at me and smiled. Then passed me by with a light pat on the shoulder and a quick "Morning, Greg." as if nothing had happened last night. I smiled back. He knew what I knew, Nick. The lights of Vegas were staring at us last night, as he laid me down on his glass desk…

"So, you're going to tell Catherine?"

"Uh, no."

"Ray?"

"Nay."

"The Doctor?"

"Negative."

"Oh thank god!"

"One more thing, Greg my boy," said David, "were the cameras in the hallway off last night? Because the security said they had seen some hot scenes going on there."

I saw stars.

I shrugged my shoulders and smiled.

July 6—July 7, 2011

Previously was titled Indigo but then I replaced it with In The Flesh because the latter has more grip, at least for me, than the previous one. It also evokes more imagination that goes well with the brief summary.

Greg Sanders' character is a new experience for me. He is a researcher, a scientist, so the poetic phrases could only be used implicitly. They are there, those phrases, but they only serve as imitations to his real character. Up to now my imitation of his real character remains imperfect.

Thanks for reading!