It's Nick's fault, really. If he hadn't spent the whole ride to the bar and the first two beers treating Greg with the exact same kind of chilly courtesy he uses on suspects--the really bad ones, the child molesters and wife-beaters that he'd as soon punch as talk to--then Greg wouldn't have had to work so hard to prove that he doesn't give a damn. Which is how he wound up dancing with the pretty redhead whose name he can't remember while Nick and Warrick nurse their third beers over at the bar. Nick's watching him. He knows, because he's spent more time looking over there than at the girl.
Greg lets her slip out of his arms as he turns back toward the bar just in time to see Nick slap an handful of bills down next to his half-full bottle of beer and stalk out of the room, back ramrod straight, shoulders stiff. He never will learn to bend at all, and Greg tells himself that's why it ended in the first place.
Shit. This wasn't how the night was supposed to go, although if he's honest with himself he'll admit that he was trying to get a reaction by flirting with Amy. Anna. Whatever. This being Nick, he should have known exactly what that reaction would be.
Warrick glances up when Greg drops into Nick's empty seat. "You're a dumb asshole, you know," he says in a conversational tone.
"I know," Greg says miserably. He doesn't even bother asking how Warrick figured it out. It's damn sure that Nick didn't say anything, but Warrick's not stupid.
"Go after him."
"What? I can't--" He makes the mistake of looking over again. And really, it's amazing how Warrick manages to pull off that nice-guy routine so well, because god damn, that man can look intimidating as fuck when he wants to. Greg's suddenly struck by the fact that Warrick's forearms are about as big around as his own neck, and he doesn't really think Warrick would hurt him, but he is Nick's best friend, and--
"Go after him," Warrick repeats implacably. "You won't get another chance."
Greg's not entirely sure whether they're talking about Nick's patience or his own life span. Warrick's hands are resting on the bar. They look big and strong enough to puncture a basketball. And right, like Nick's really going to appreciate Greg trying to make up to him under the threat of bodily harm.
"He doesn't want to talk to me."
Warrick snorts and lifts his beer to his lips. "Aren't you supposed to be smart?"
"I'm a genius." A really stupid genius.
"You're the only person he does want to talk to. Don't ask me why."
"How do you know?"
"He's not talking to me," Warrick says wearily. "And he's not talking to Cath or Sara or Grissom. And after you flipped out on him I had to go and drag him in for his shift before he got fired."
"You knew about that?"
Warrick gives him an exasperated look. "Everybody knew, Sanders." His tone of voice is one that Greg usually associates with Grissom, the one that tacks a silent you moron on the end of every statement.
Greg makes a face and takes a sip from the beer that Nick left sitting on the bar. It's still cold and fizzy and this is the closest his mouth has been to Nick in a month, and okay--that's it. If he's going to start mooning over beer bottles, that's a sure sign that this has gone too far. He slides off the seat, tongue still stinging from the alcohol.
"I'm just going to--get some fresh air," he says, waving a hand in the general direction of the door that Nick just stomped out of. Warrick chuckles in his deep voice, shakes his head and looks back at the football game on TV.
"You do that."
Nick is pacing in front of the bar when he comes outside, cell phone pressed to his ear.
"...the corner of Wilson and Montgomery, yeah. No, just one--" and he turns around and sees Greg standing there. For a minute he just stares, and Greg gives him what he hopes is a charming smile. His lips feel numb.
Nick slaps the phone shut. "What the hell do you want?"
"Calling a cab?"
"I'm not in a fit state to drive. Unless you feel like getting called out to scrape me off the pavement later tonight."
"I don't."
"Good." Nick turns his back, hands shoved in his pockets. "Don't you have someone to be getting back to?" He doesn't even bother to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
"Ah, she was boring. And she kind of smelled like mushroom soup."
Nick doesn't laugh. He turns back toward Greg, and his eyes are dark and wounded in the yellow glow of the streetlamp. "What do you want?" he asks again, and this time there's no anger in his voice, just defeat. It stings to hear, more than Greg wants to admit.
He tries out another smile. "Warrick told me to go after you. I think he knows about us."
"There is no us, Greg." Always Greg, now, never Greggo or G or Einstein or any of the other stupid nicknames Greg never realized he liked until he didn't hear them any more. "You made that damn clear the last time we talked."
And okay, it wasn't really the last time they talked. They work together, after all, and they have a lot of the same friends, so they've certainly talked in the month since Greg stormed out of Nick's house in his pajamas, but Greg knows what he means. Since the fight. Since he said things like I can't take this and I need some space and you know what, fuck you, this isn't working anymore, and Nick just stood there and took it and watched him walk away without a word. Because that's the way Nick is.
And the hell of it is, he doesn't even remember what the fight was about. Something stupid, probably, Nick's disappointment over a gang member going free or his own frustration at a stalled investigation coming out in a screaming match about movies or dinner plans. They've both got a bad habit of bringing work home with them.
He didn't even mean to end it, not really. When he loses his temper, words just come flying out of his mouth, calculated to sting, and one of the things he's always liked about Nick was the way he can just let that kind of thing roll off him. Usually. But that time Greg must have stepped a little too far over the line because all he can remember is Nick standing there in the kitchen, frozen. Just standing, wearing an expression of startled pain, like a man who's been unexpectedly slapped. He was too angry to notice it then, but it's been haunting him ever since.
He barely remembers walking the two miles to Sara's place. Which is also Grissom's place now, but Grissom--mercifully--wasn't home. Sara made him coffee and told him he was an idiot. Which was true. She also told him to go back and talk to Nick, and maybe if he had they wouldn't be having this conversation in front of a bar while they're both two sheets to the wind.
He was going to apologize. Eventually. Just because he avoided Nick that whole shift, that doesn't mean he was really planning to call it quits. Except that Nick apparently didn't see it that way, because Greg came home from the grocery store two days later to find his toothbrush, his wallet, and a stack of CD's sitting on top of all the clothes--washed and neatly folded--that he left at Nick's place, with the spare key he gave Nick the third week they were together sitting on the counter.
He overreacted. A little. Maybe.
Okay, overreacted is probably a mild word for what he did, which was drive down to the sleaziest gay bar he knows, get absolutely plastered on no-name tequila that was probably cut with motor oil, and fuck a random stranger in the bathroom. He's still not sure how he got home, but he has a vague memory of Sara calling him names and holding his hair back while he puked. He woke up in the recovery position on his bathroom floor with a rolled-up towel shoved under his head and his car was still in one piece when he went to check on it, so he must have called somebody.
That was a month ago. And for four weeks--twenty-eight days, six-hundred and seventy-two hours--he's been driving in to work alone and going home alone and pretending not to see the lines that have been carving themselves deeper and deeper into Nick's face. No more wet towels on the floor. No more disgusting health food in the fridge, no more country music on the clock radio, no more missing his shows so Nick can watch football on TV. He's got all the space he could have hoped for and he can't remember the last time he's been this miserable.
Nick's still watching him, hands braced on his hips. He looks old even in this dim light, hollowed out and tired. His hair is too long. He doesn't usually let it go this long without a trim, and Greg wants to reach out and brush the dark, soft strands off of his forehead. His palms itch with the need to touch, but the five or so paces between them feel like light-years.
He has to fix this, and he doesn't know how to do that. Nick's always been the one who's good at fixing things, the patient type who will weather the storm and then gather up all the broken pieces and put them back together.
Greg looks down, rough pavement between his booted toes. Traffic echoing on the busier streets a few blocks away. Nick's cab will be here soon and then it's going to be too late.
"I might," he manages finally, "have been a little hasty."
"You just now figured that out?"
Words cracking like a whip across the empty space, and Greg never would have figured that Nick's voice, that honey slow drawl that he can still hear murmuring in his ear in the long, hot afternoons when they didn't have to work--he never would have imagined that it could sound like that, so sharp and brittle. Stinging, and Greg wants to flinch away but he's come this far. He's started this whole thing and the only thing he can do now is finish it.
"Yeah," he says, and spreads his hands, helplessly. Nick's face is closed-off and guarded, and Greg never realized how much he counted on Nick being able to fill in the gaps with words he never quite knew how to say. That's not going to happen this time, though, so he draws in a breath of chilly air, tasting exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke, and lays it all out. "I miss you, okay? And I'm sorry."
"You're sorry." Nick's voice is still noncommittal, and damn it, Greg's never been able to read between the lines with him.
"Yeah. I'm sorry. I fucked up, okay? I was an idiot. A jerk. A complete and total--"
"Hey," Nick interrupts. Softly, and he still hasn't moved but suddenly it doesn't seem like there's quite as much space between them. Greg meets his eyes and finally dares to hope.
Nick still isn't smiling, but that horrible stiff expression that he's been wearing all night--or, really, for the past month--has softened. "I thought I told you not to run yourself down like that."
"Yeah." Greg swallows hard. His eyes are stinging, and he's pretty sure it's not just the cold. He clears his throat, shifts his weight, trying to find the courage to take that first step into the stretch of pavement that separates them. Nick is just watching him, standing there with his hair falling over his forehead, dark eyes so compelling and--
And the moment is broken, rudely, by the yellow cab that pulls up to the curb. Nick's cab. Right. Greg rocks back on his heels, feeling like his center of gravity has been thrown off.
He squares his shoulders, rubs his hands together, then lets them drop at his sides. "Well," he says, and even he can hear the false brightness in his voice. "I'm glad I got that out. So you're probably really tired, and maybe we should try to deal with this some other time when we're not both wasted, so I'll just--"
"Greg," Nick interrupts again, and this time he is smiling, God, that small, sweet smile that creases the corners of his eyes and somehow manages to light up his whole face. He jerks his chin at the cab. "Plenty of room for two."