The Persistence of Memory
Disclaimer: I am not, nor am I in any way affiliated with CBS, Anthony Zuiker, or anybody else involved in the production of CSI.
Summary: Once you know, you can never go back. There is only now. Drugs, tea, Dali, and too many words to keep track. GregSara. One-shot. Very weird.
Author's Note: I've meant to write real Greg angst, and I've started several over the last few months, but this is the first one that I really, really like. It's run-on-y and fragment-y and funky, but I think it turned out very nicely indeed.
The Persistence of Memory
There is only now. Somebody told him that once, and although the context has changed and he's left that behind, it's stayed with him. He can hear the intonation of the voice, the perfect way the speaker uttered the words, even though he can't remember or tell if it was a man or a woman. He does remember that he'd been in New Orleans at the time, and pretty blown. He's surprised that he remembers the phrase at all. That was how he spent most of the year he was nineteen, and consequently he only has pieces. Sometimes he wonders what kinds of things he did. Earlier that evening, in the field, a junkie recognized him, called him by name, told him how nice he cleaned up. He hadn't known what to say, and Sara had given him a curious look.
There is only now. The story of a junkie's life, really. No past, no future, nothing. Black space surrounding a dimly lit sun. Dirt around a flower's roots. The coat of oil protecting pure sodium from water. Sometimes, when he's in the shower or driving the Strip or shaving that awkward spot under the corner of his jaw or a dozen other routine things, he feels the phantom pang of addiction. That time's some ten years gone and he still feels its fingers in him, just like sometimes he can just smell the Cocoa Crispies he left in college, too.
It's very early morning and he's sitting in the kitchen of Sara's apartment, stabbing out his cigarette into a saucer, spilling his guts to her because he trusts her, even though she'll probably tell anyway. A little piece of him wants to protect her from what he's got simmering on a back burner, but another, larger part wants to punish her for wanting to know and for all the little imagined slights she's trespassed against him. He lights another cigarette, and she doesn't seem to mind even though she quit. He thinks for a second that maybe she's getting a contact rush of nicotine and enjoying it. He doesn't know.
"So, wait," she says slowly. "You think you're 'sliding?'"
He shrugs, exhaling through his nose. When he first started smoking, that always used to make him sneeze. "Backwards, forwards, every way." He shrugs again and takes a deep drag, eyelids falling closed in pleasure. She snorts and his brow furrows. She thinks this is a joke. He wants to toss some nasty thing back in her face but truthfully nothing floats to the surface. There is only now.
There are a lot of things that do bubble up through his gray matter, though. He keeps his eyes closed as they filter past him in a single-file line. Then they get impatient and start shoving. A second or two later, he has to open his eyes to save himself from vertigo. All kinds of things: pomegranates and him shoving the table aside and kissing her senseless and broken bits of teacups and her pulling him down onto the floor and somebody screaming for help and him shucking off his pants and then it stops and he locks eyes with her. She smiles warily. He breaks the contact and stabs out the half-smoked cigarette.
"That was wasteful," she says, sounding mournful. Definitely still a smoker at heart.
"I have the luxury now," he says.
"Explain that," she demands, sliding the pack towards her and tucking it under her crossed arms so he can't reach it. She had recognized that he was hiding in his halo of smoke and behind his little white cigarettes. She wanted naked, now? Fine. "Explain the 'only now' thing. I didn't get it the first time."
He sighs and sinks backwards, imagining that he could seep back and down and into the chair, run down its legs and repeat the process through the floor like water. Or blood. "Nobody likes drugs," he says. "Drugs like people. Drugs are people. Instinctively, most people don't like other people because people are dangerous, stupid animals. Think about it," he says, nodding. She looks alarmed. "Druggies are a very select group of people. They insulate themselves to escape things, packed into messy little holes they scratched out themselves."
"Why did you do it, then?" she asks, still not getting it. His fingers twitch and he plays with the ash in the saucer still in front of him, drawing lines and dreams and then wiping them away for new ones.
"So I could say I could. Same reason I didn't actually have sex with a girl until I was a senior in college. For the story." He shrugs. "Everybody looks at you like you're a freak when you tell them you're still a virgin. I love America." The teapot screams.
She stands up and goes over to the stove, taking the pack of cigarettes with her, jamming them down into the back pocket of her jeans. She pours some hot water into a cup and hands it to him, careful not to touch him. He understands that she doesn't want him to make it too real. "Tell me about that. What is it now?" She sits back down.
"'What is it now?'" he repeats, looking at her for guidance. She nods, leaning back, eyes narrowed that way they do when she's testing a hypothesis. He feels exquisitely like a science experiment.
"There is only now," he says, staring down into the water. The teacup is delicate, fine bone china painted with primroses. There's a tiny one painted on the very bottom of the cup and he can see it through the hot, turbulent water, its lines shifting with the water's movement. "This cup has no past and no future because it doesn't have a memory or muscles. It has to wait for you to pick it up, fill it, dunk in a teabag. It has to wait for you to drink it, drain it, refill it or not. It doesn't care if you wash it immediately, though I guess it would probably like it if you waited until it was cool so that it didn't break." He glances up at her to see how he's doing. Her eyes are hard and guarded, her facial muscles set. But she's leaning forward now, listening intently, waiting for him. "That's how you are when you're high. You don't have any control over your destiny. Slow down, man," he says in a character voice, "there ain't no time like right now. Tomorrow's still gonna be there tomorrow." He stops abruptly and she doesn't notice right away.
"Fantastic," she breathes after a second. "What about in ten minutes?"
He shrugs. He puts the cup down next to the saucer. For the first time he notices that they're a matched pair. "That's got to wait for now to finish up, doesn't it?"
"That's all there is, isn't it?" Her eyes grow very bright and he looks down at the cup, suddenly wanting a teabag. He's never been much of a tea person-- always coffee and often a snob about it-- but right-now is not a coffee moment. She stands up and starts rummaging through drawers. "And you did all of this and then you just walked away for a new adventure?" She speaks quickly.
She hands him a little foil wrapped package and he has to do a double take before he realizes that it's tea. She smiles at his reaction and slams the drawer shut, the silverware inside clanging together in protest. She crosses her arms over her chest and leans back against the counter, waiting for him to respond as he tears into the package with his teeth and pulls out the teabag. He sniffs it and smiles before dropping it in the water.
"That's what I do. The curse of genius?" He breaks stride and slips back into the person she generally knows him as, grinning. "I'm interested in everything. I did my first two years of college before I was eighteen, and after my birthday I told my parents that I wanted to see what there was in the world before I pigeonholed myself. They couldn't exactly say no." He drinks deeply of the cup, then daintily sets it down and dabs at his mouth with his sleeve. The teabag is still in the water. He glances up at her but she hasn't moved. She isn't even looking at him, just staring blankly across the kitchen. "So I packed up my car and I drove around the country for two years. I'm not sure how I managed to not die." He laughs shortly and she turns her face to him. He stands and leans against the counter next to her, trying for her perspective.
They stand in silence for quite a long time. There is a clock in another room that Greg can hear marking their progress in its never-ending sort of way, muffled with space.
"So tomorrow has to wait?" she asks slowly, staring at the Dali print hanging on the opposite wall. Greg feels very much like the clocks themselves, draped backwards over a tree branch or a corner. He doesn't breathe for a moment, waiting for her. "I can live with that philosophy," she says, looking determined. "I'm usually a dweller, not a liver, but I can change."
He nods. "I'm more of a kidney myself," he agrees, breaking stride again. She cocks her head at him and doesn't respond. Then she kisses him, hard, hands grabbing him by the back of the head. Truthfully, he's only mildly surprised. He had sort of expected it sooner than that, and sort of not expected it to ever happen.
That afternoon, when he wakes up in her bed, he finds that she's much better than any drug he's ever tried, but for life of him, he can't remember a single one of them.
End.
I very much apologize if that was hard to follow or if they seemed out of character. But, for God sakes, tell me how you feel about it! I should say that I don't normally write in the present tense, but the tone of this one wouldn't have felt right in the past tense.
Oh, and no, I will not be continuing this. It is a one-shot. There is no more.
Credits for various inspirations: "Otherside" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. "Devil's in the Details" by Bright Eyes. "The Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dali, 1931.
Dedicated to Mrs. Adante, the best English teacher I've ever had, who taught me that style is everything. Tone is everything. And that everything has a purpose. (Hint to ya'll: everything here totally has a purpose, too! This fic is riddled with literary stuff.)
Started September 11th, 2005, and finished September 12th, 2005.