About the Penguins…
Summary: Greg wakes up on Nick's couch and can't remember the night before… Sequel to "Are You Nervous?"
Author's Note: I just couldn't leave my last one shot where it was. So here is its sequel. Enjoy.
"What I mean is… you're made for each other," she said, taking a long swig of her beer. "You know. Like penguins."
I cocked an eyebrow. "Penguins?"
"Yeah, penguins," she repeated. "You know, they mate for life."
"So do humans," I pointed out.b
"Mm, only a few of 'em," she mumbled. She raised her eyebrows and nodded at me. "You two, you could be like penguins."
I scoffed. "Yeah. In another reality."
"Max!" Sara called. "Greg needs some tequila."
The bartender nodded. "I'm on it."
"I don't want tequila," I complained.
"Come on, you're going to need some liquid courage," she said.
I tensed. I could tell what was coming. "For what?"
She cracked that classic sly Sara Sidle smile. "I'm going to take you to Nick's tonight."
I rolled my eyes. "No, you're not."
"Yes, I am," she insisted.
"You've had too much to drink."
"So we'll share a cab."
"No, I mean, you can't be thinking clearly. I'm not going over to Nick's tonight."
"Come on," she cajoled. "What's the worst that could happen?"
"I'll tell you the worst that could happen," I said. "I could get my ass kicked, that's the worst that could happen."
"By Nick?" She sounded doubtful. "He's a teddy bear."
"With a temper!" I insisted. "You push the wrong buttons—"
"Greg, it's impossible for you to push the wrong buttons," Sara replied. "He loves you…" Her smile faded as she saw me look up at her. "I mean… you know. The point is, Nick would never hurt you."
"OK," I conceded. "So then, I'll just humiliate the both of us."
"Blame it on the booze!" Sara cried, a little loud in her tipsy state. "Isn't that the easy way out? And, if you're lucky, in the morning you won't remember it, and Nick will pretend nothing happened, and nothing will change."
I shook my head. "I don't believe you."
Max slid a shot of tequila my way as Sara watched me expectantly.
"Either you do this, Greg, or this is the last time I sit here and listen to you whine about it."
"Oh come on!" I exclaimed. "That's not fair! How many times have we ended up here with you going on about how Grissom would never—"
"That's exactly what I'm saying!" Sara interrupted. "I said never! And I was wrong. And here we are, our roles reversed, and I'm just trying to do for you what you did for me."
"I did nothing for you," I mumbled with a half shrug as my eyes fell on the tequila shot.
She put her hand on mine, and I looked up. She was leaning in close to the bar, her hair lightly brushing the surface of it as she looked up at me. "You told me never to give up."
"At the time, I was trying to get into your pants," I said, taking my hand away from hers.
She giggled. "No, you weren't," she said. "You pretend you're that guy. The best friend, wait-til-she's-vulnerable-then-make-your-move guy. But you're not. You're better than that. You meant it."
I said nothing. I gripped the shot glass in one hand and drummed the bar with my other. The tequila shimmered, golden in the bar light. I heard her shift on the stool beside me.
"I've crossed some line here, haven't I?" she asked, after a moment.
"You and Grissom, that was different," I muttered, my throat closing up as my grip on the glass tightened. "You and… you and me, was… different. With you, it was always safe, because I knew it would never happen. That you knew… and it became almost… funny. We laughed about it. Bonded, even." I looked up at her and smiled sadly. "And I got over you."
"What makes this different?" she asked.
I managed a half shrug. "I don't know. I mean, I'm doing it again, aren't I? Wrapping myself up in someone I can never have… There's a strange security in it. But this time, I'm tired of reaching for things out of my reach. I actually… really want him now. And I want him to want me back." I looked up at her again, almost worried. "Is that bad?"
She was wearing that very annoying expression, magnified by the alcohol, the face she wore when she saw puppies or watched old movies. It almost made me gag. I immediately downed the shot and slammed it on the table.
Sara laughed. "No, Greg," she assured me. "No, it's good."
"But he could never…"
"What did we just say about that word?" Sara asked. "Never? Greg, you will never know, unless you tell him."
I looked up at the bartender. "Max!" I called. "Line me up a few more shots of that tequila."
"Lemon?" Sara offered, pushing the plate near me.
I pushed it away. "No time," I said. "I have to get as shitfaced as I possibly can without losing my cool."
"That's the spirit!" Sara cried, toasting me with her beer. "Do it for the penguins!"
Penguins… For some reason that thought reverberated in my suddenly very heavy, throbbing head. Bright red invaded my vision and I groaned, turning around and burying my face in the back of the… couch?
What was I doing on a couch?
I was in too much pain to care and instead seized the nearest pillow and pulled it over my head. I must have really lost myself the night before. I hadn't been this hung over in a very long time. I let out another sigh as I tried to dig a hole in the couch which I could crawl into and die. My stomach gurgled and I tried to ignore it. I did not taste any stale stomach acids or bits of regurgitated food, which meant I had probably kept all my alcohol down the night before, although it definitely didn't feel like it if you asked my brain.
And then, my hypersensitive ears picked up movement from beyond my final resting place. I stiffened, listening, wondering who was in my apartment and willing them to go away. I grunted my distaste at their presence and heard a laugh.
A deep laugh.
A familiar laugh.
My brain tried to connect the information it was being fed, but it was far too sluggish to come to any conclusions. Instead, I squirmed deeper between the corner of the back of the couch and the cushions and willed this person to go away. I knew something wasn't right if there was another person in my apartment, but at the time, I was too hung over to care.
"That's what you get," a loud voice boomed inside my skull, "for drinking yourself silly. You want some dinner?"
After a few minutes, my mind finally placed the voice and my muscles tensed. I groaned again, this time because I knew I had been caught, and it was all Sara's fault. I rolled over with my eyes still closed, and then slowly lifted the lids to see a blurry figure standing by the couch with his hands on his waist.
"Tell me I didn't make an ass of myself," I pleaded. My voice was scratchy and tired.
He just laughed again. "I'm afraid I can't tell you that, G."
I closed my eyes again. "Aw, man…"
Someone was holding my hand. I frowned, my eyes fluttering open. Nick was no longer standing, but kneeling beside the couch. A couch, I realized now, which belonged to him, not me. I was at Nick's place, not my own. Oh God, what did I say last night? I thought to myself dismally.
"Come to the kitchen with me," Nick whispered with a strange smirk I couldn't place. "I made you a banana milkshake."
I pouted and clenched my teeth in child-like stubbornness. "Do I have to move?" I asked.
He chortled quietly. "No… no, I guess you don't," he said with a sweet smile. I badly wanted to reach out and run my finger across those gently curved lips. But I restrained myself. He was probably trying to pretend that I didn't humiliate the both of us last night. Although fragments of a dream floated back to me in which Nick had been quite receptive to my poetic wooing technique of falling all over my words. Of course, it could have only been in my dreams. Nick is far too smart to fall for someone as suave as me in reality.
And yet, the man reached out and stroked my hair, like a sick beloved puppy dog he liked to scratch behind the ears. Nick was a fairly open guy, but he wasn't generally so affectionate, at least not like this, not soft, or tender… Our contact generally consisted of him hitting me in the arm or pulling me into some big manly guy hug.
This… this was different.
"I'll be right back," Nick said, as if it were a promise he wouldn't dream of breaking.
In my haggard state, I was still confused at his behavior. I allowed my brow to furrow as he rose to his feet and released my hand, making a quick exit to the kitchen. My brain was still throbbing, sore at me for the way I treated it the night before. And the queasy feeling in my stomach definitely wasn't helping. I sighed as I closed my eyes and tried to recall how I had ended up here the night before. Flashes of a taxi, and Sara muttering encouraging phrases drifted into my consciousness. Banging his door as the car drove off to take her home, and then…
I chewed on my lip and decided not to think about it as my stomach lurched. I closed my eyes just as I heard Nick reenter from the kitchen, holding a milkshake in his hand.
"Come on, sit up," he urged, and I begrudgingly did so, still leaning heavily on the arm of the couch as I took the proffered drink and held it to my lips. The glass was frosty, and so was the cool, milky liquid it held, which slid down my throat and plopped into my stomach, neutralizing the acids.
I looked at him from over the brim questioningly. He was sitting on the coffee table with his elbows on his knees. "What did I say to you last night?" I asked, because as much as I hoped I hadn't spilled my guts, I really had to know if I did.
He favored me with a half-smile. "Finish the milkshake, and we'll talk then."
"I want to talk now," I insisted. "I don't… I didn't mean it," I said quickly, to counteract anything humiliating that may have transpired between us. "I mean, when I get drunk, I get these crazy ideas and things, and they aren't generally good ideas, if you know what I mean, so if I, um, I don't know, maybe, implied something, then, uh, I didn't mean it."
His smile faded a little. "Just drink the milkshake, Greg."
His tone was demanding, but quiet, and so I obliged, if that was what he really wanted. I would do anything for him, after all. Or so I'd like to think. Regardless, I watched him intently, trying to read his features and figure out exactly how much of my soul I had bared to him. Was I completely naked or did I still have a towel to hide behind? Details like these were important. Details like these meant the difference between saving a friendship, and losing it completely.
But he betrayed nothing, which was unusual for Nick. He was often very easy to read, but this time his eyes were solid as they stared at me. They didn't waver, and neither did his lips, which had lost the smile he had been wearing when I'd first woken up.
I quickly finished the milkshake, which soothed my churning stomach, and handed Nick the glass. He gripped it between his hands and continued to look at me.
"What is it you didn't mean, Greg?" he asked, trying to sound casual, but there was a hint of distress below the surface that I couldn't understand.
I gave him a half shrug, in the interest of appearing casual myself. "I don't know. Everything, I guess. Whatever I said. I'm kind of whimsical when I get like that. I say stupid things that come to mind, make spontaneous choices…"
"Well, do you remember what you said?" Nick pressed, cocking his eyebrow.
My cheeks flushed and I looked away. "Um, no, not exactly…"
"Then how can you know if you meant it or not?" Nick asked.
I looked up at him out of the tops of my eyes, my mouth half open as I tried to think of a response. "What… did I say last night, Nick? If it's not, you know, too… embarrassing for you to…" I trailed off, afraid that I would lose what dignity I still had left.
The smile returned to his features and it helped me relax. "You were talking about penguins."
I suppose that shouldn't have been surprising. I had woken up with birds on the brain, and Sara had said something about penguins at the bar the night before. "What about penguins?"
"See, that's what I kept trying to figure out," said Nick, his smile growing. "You mentioned that they mate for life, that male penguins sit on the eggs, and that Morgan Freeman starred in a movie about a penguin marching band."
I winced. "I said that?"
He nodded. "Yes, you did."
Though my face was already burning, I asked for more. "What else did I say?" I asked.
Nick sighed and pursed his lips, a tinge of fear in his brown eyes. "Well… then, you…" His hand moved away from the glass and towards me. "… reached out your hand…" I was surprised, and followed the hand as it rest on my knee. "… and asked me if I was nervous."
My mouth went dry. I couldn't tear my eyes away from him. I couldn't even speak. I was too horrified of what happened after that, of what I had done next.
"Are you nervous, Greg?" Nick asked, his voice low, quiet, almost teasing. But why would Nick Stokes be teasing me like this?
I glanced down at the hand on my knee, and then looked up. I closed my mouth and licked my lips to moisten them. "Uh…"
He placed the empty glass on the coffee table and moved onto his knees, the hand never leaving my knee. In fact, he only worsened matters by placing his other hand on my other knee. It was such a submissive position for Nick, so odd, that my mind was reeling, the headache muted by the panic that was ringing like fire alarm bells.
And yet, I couldn't tell him to stop. I couldn't let him take his hands away because the truth was I badly needed them there. I needed him there. And I owed it to him to let him finish his story.
His hands glided up my thighs. "Are you nervous, Greg?"
"Incredibly," I admitted finally as a bullet trickled down my temple.
He looked slightly embarrassed, and began to draw his hands away and before I knew it, my own hands were clapping down on top of his, clamping them in place right above my knees. I made him look up.
"That doesn't mean I want you to stop," I said, surprised at the words tumbling out of my mouth now.
He smiled with relief. "I thought, maybe since it's morning, and you're sober, you might have had second thoughts," he explained. "You might have… not meant it."
He wanted this. He wanted this as badly as I wanted this. He was kneeling at my feet, practically begging, and all I could do was stand there and stare.
"There has to be something wrong with me," I muttered to myself, aghast.
He misunderstood, his smile growing again as his hands rubbed the tops of my thighs. "No, Greg. There's nothing wrong with you."
He moved his hands back down my thighs, to my knees, and moved them apart, crawling closer to me on his knees, and I felt my heartbeat quicken. His hands moved up to my hips and then over my chest to my shoulders. Instinctively, I curled my back and leaned forward, hunching my shoulders upwards as I cradled his face in my hand, closed my eyes, and—
"Ow!" we both cried.
Stupid me, in my haste to taste him, hadn't choreographed our instinctual dance well enough. I had collided with his forehead.
But Nick was laughing. "You're even uncoordinated when you're sober," he said, his hands moving around my neck and tickling the hairs there.
I leaned my forehead against his. "Shut up."
A hand of his trailed up the side of my face, charting the landscape there, his fingertips running over my cheekbones, my lips, a thumb running over my eyebrow… I wasn't sure what he was doing, and then he spoke again.
"I never thought that I would ever be here, like this, with you…" he whispered, barely audible, his eyes glassy with awe. "Or that there would be nowhere else I'd rather be."
A warmth spread through me then, and I knew that I needed to kiss him. Poor coordination aside, I made a dive for it and this time, quite possibly by pure luck, or maybe magnetism, my lips connected with his, my fingers climbed up into his hair, and he rose up on his knees to meet me, his arms draped over my shoulders, his fingers playing with the hair on the back of my neck. I needed him, deeply, fully, forever, and I would taste that first kiss for the rest of my life. Sweet and warm and safe, with a hint of bananas and honey and day-old coffee. I would never let that taste out of my memory, or the way he smelled on that cool afternoon, and I would learn later it was that tangy, salty scent he has right after he wakes up and right before he takes a shower. I would smell it every morning when he would nuzzle my neck before he went to prepare for the day, and it would always remind me of this singular moment in Nick's living room, where he knew me for everything I was, where he had seen me naked for the first time, and he hadn't run away.
And he would never run away.
Eventually, the kiss ended, as kisses need to do, but I knew then that there would be plenty of opportunities for so many more to come, and the promise of Nick, the promise of his lips against mind, was the best hangover cure I could have hoped for.
