Title: The Medallion

Author: subobscura

See first chapter for full headers.

A/N: Well, I just spent like two hours trying to make a cover for this story, but alas, my editor kept freezing up. sniff I'm really sleepy, but I feel I must update. Musical inspiration, um, K T Tunstall. The chapter title is from a song on her album, Eye to the Telescope, which is a pretty big inspiration for this piece. Very beautiful album. Um, yeah, this isn't beta'd or even reread, so I take full responsibility for any horrendous mistakes.

Part 2- Miniature Disasters

"Hey Bonnie," Greg smiled up at the forty something waitress who'd been at the diner longer than he'd been at the crime lab.

"Greg, long time no see!" She exclaimed. "You have no idea how boring it is around here without you to liven things up. Hey Nick," she said as an aside.

"Ma'am." Nick nodded at her.

Greg rolled his eyes and said, "Yeah, well, all work and no play makes Greg a dull boy. I usually crash after shift."

"Man's gotta eat though, honey."

"Now that I make the big bucks, I can't afford to eat out every day. How's Gracie?"

"Oh she's good. She just started learning cursive. She's all excited because now she writes like a big girl."

"What grade is she in again?"

"Third going on high school."

"God, Bonnie, don't give me a heart attack," Greg moaned. "Man, I'm getting so old."

"Please, you don't look a day over 25 on your worst days. It's so unfair," she pouted. "You want your usual today?"

"Yep, coffee, lucky charms, two eggs scrambled, four links, and an orange juice," he repeated for Nick's benefit.

"You know, sweetie, you're the only person over 16 who orders Lucky Charms here. And this is a cop hangout so we don't even get many kids."

"What can I say? I have a young heart to match my youthful exterior."

"That stuff'll kill you Greggo. How can you eat candy for breakfast?" Nick asked, his eyes crinkling. He was enjoying the early morning banter. It was a comfortable way to end the day.

"Easily and rapidly."

"How bout' you Nicky? What'll it be?" Bonnie turned towards him with a kind smile, her hand resting loosely on her hip.

"What the hell. Same as he's having, minus the Lucky Charms. I'll take Raisin Bran if you've got it."

"Good man," she said, patting him on the shoulder before she turned to drop off their orders with the cook.

Order up! Pair of drawers to start out. Two bowls of birdseed, one charmed and one pruned. Two cackle fruit and wreck em' with four zeppelins on one and two, and squeeze two.

The clatter of the diner surrounded them with its familiar comforts. Greg leaned back in his seat and sprawled his legs, unsure of where to start. Nick and he weren't exactly on close terms since last spring. He didn't think Nick was on close terms with anyone really, but he didn't allow himself to examine that too closely.

"So," he said.

"So," Nick echoed.

Greg picked at the edge of the pleather seat, which was fraying from years of use. Suddenly, he grinned and looked up at Nick, his eyes sparkling with a little mischief.

"My name is Greg Sanders, and I'm thirty-one years old. I'm a drug addict. I've been sober for 10 years, six months, and 5 days." Maybe if he kept this tongue in cheek, he could get through this with as little pain as possible.

"Greg," Nick trailed off. He shifted in his seat and looked down. "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea."

Greg felt bad. Nick was reaching out to him and he was pushing him away with sarcasm. They had all seen the man at his lowest, most vulnerable point in his life, had watched as he cried and screamed and begged for mercy, had watched as his personal life was displayed on the national stage. Greg realized it was only fair that he give something in return.

"I'm sorry, Nick. I'm an asshole. You can ask me whatever you want, I'm just not used to talking about it."

Nick looked up and smiled a little, seeing that Greg understood where he was coming from. He sighed and squinted a little in the bright sun coming through the plate glass window. "Alright, fair enough I guess. Half the time I've known you I thought you were on drugs anyway, so I guess it's not much of a surprise." He grinned to take the sting of his words away.

Greg wrinkled his nose. "Whatever, man. I enjoy the hell out of life, no crime in that."

"Definitely not," Nick agreed. "So what were you on?"

"What wasn't I on is a better question." Greg leaned forward and put his elbows on the table looking down, suddenly shy. Before now, he'd never really been reticent about his experiences with his friends, but this was Nick, a man he'd once had a huge crush on. It sucked to have to disappoint his friend. "I guess if I had to choose a main drug of choice, it would be coke, but I've tried pretty much everything there is to try." He risked a glance up. Nick held him with his steady gaze, but his eyes weren't hard or judgmental, only questioning.

"Jesus, man. I was only kidding about the drugs. It's sort of hard for me to imagine you doing all that stuff."

Greg shrugged. "Believe it," he said. He took out the medallion and rolled it over to Nick. He smiled wryly, and said, "Got the medal to prove it."

"How'd you fall into that scene, Greggo? You're a smart guy, a chemist. You know what that shit does to your brain. That was after Stanford, so, what happened?"

"I know it was stupid," Greg snapped. "Sorry." He softened his tone a bit. "The same way it happens to everyone I guess. It was the summer before I started grad school, and I moved to Berkeley to set up my apartment. My roommate at the time was into the club scene, and I kind of got dragged along for the ride. A bump here, a bump there. It's sounds retarded, like a peer education video or something, but everyone was doing it. It was a fast downward spiral."

"Shit, G, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound like a jackass."

"It's okay, I understand. It really was one of the lowest points in my life. I sucked the better part of a 12k inheritance up my nose."

He glanced up and smiled warmly at Bonnie, who had come back with their juice and coffee. Bonnie put their drinks down, patted his back, and walked away without continuing their earlier banter. Evidently, she had noticed their serious conversation.

"You know, all those times you said you did all those crazy things, I really thought you made half of them up."

Greg laughed a little at that. "Yeah well, some of them I did. Do. It's just so easy to get a rise out of you people. But a lot of it is autobiographical."

"So, why'd you stop?"

Greg lost his smile, and his eyes took on that serious, thoughtful expression that was more his speed these days. "I, uh, I drove up to my parent's house the last weekend in July. As soon as they saw me, they knew something was terribly wrong. I was pale, gaunt, dirty. My pictures from that time are horrific. We couldn't really afford rehab at the time, and anyway, I didn't want that on my record. In my lucid moments, I still really wanted to go to grad school." He sighed. "I detoxed that weekend in my bedroom from when I was a kid." He shuddered. "To this day, I can't go in there anymore without getting physically ill. I stayed there for a week. When I went back for orientation, I cleared out all my stuff, broke the lease on my apartment, and moved in to a single by myself. I had to quit the whole scene cold turkey. For the first six months, I went to a meeting every day, which isn't difficult in a place like Berkely where every other person is a recovering addict. At least, that's what it felt like."

Nick had his hands on the table as though he wanted to reach out and comfort Greg. They didn't have that kind of relationship though, so he curled his fingers in and looked at Greg, who was bathed in sunlight slanting in from outside.

"That's how you got clean, G. I asked why."

Greg's shoulders slumped, and when he looked up, Nick caught his breath. All of a sudden, the young man looked like he might cry. His sleepy brown eyes were huge in his face, and all Nick could see there was regret piled on regret. Greg leaned his face in one hand, and traced his finger through the condensation on the table from his orange juice.

"Um, yeah. Right." Greg really really did not want to talk about this, especially to Nick. It would ruin any chance they had of ever becoming something more.

"Hey, man, it's alright. You can tell me to go to hell if it's none of my business."

For a moment, hope flared in Greg and then guttered out. He was caught, and even if he never said anything more, this would always sit between them like a heavy invisible barrier. At least maybe he could hope for Nick's understanding, his forgiveness.

"No, no, I want to. It's just not easy. Um," he took a shuddering breath. "When I woke up that weekend, before I ran home, I woke up on the floor of a guy's apartment whose name I didn't even know. I wasn't high anymore, and I realized the place was a shithole. There was no furniture, there was graffiti everywhere. There were roaches trying to eat my fingernails." He paused. "I was naked, totally naked lying with a filthy blanket with god knows what on it. I slept with the guy the night before to get a bump, and the worst part is, that wasn't even the first time something like that had happened." He sniffed, and reached up to brush a few stray tears off his cheek. He felt extremely self conscious sitting in a cop diner pouring out his life story to Nick, when any of his friends or the cops from the nightshift could see him.

"I'd been trading sex for drugs for the better part of a month then, doing whatever and whoever to chase that next high. I'd always been able to rationalize it before then, but it just hit me. I was tricking myself out for drugs. I was a prostitute. A whore, and I disgusted myself and hated myself. I couldn't figure out how I went from PBK to whore in a matter of months." He was staring hard at the table now, trying to decipher the wood grain.

"I was so lucky, Nicky. So so lucky. I somehow by the grace of god managed not to catch anything, and I had friends and family who were willing to help me out despite how stupid and useless I had been. But I'll always have to live with how I debased myself."

This time, Nick did reach out and put his hands over Greg's, curving his fingers over the other man's tightly curled fists. He didn't care how it looked, right now his friend needed his understanding.

When, he felt Nick's hands over his and looked up and saw the Texan's compassionate gaze, to his horror, Greg let out a sob. Sliding one of his hands from under Nick's, he looked around quickly and swiped at the tears flowing freely down his face. "Shit," he said. "I'm a mess." He tried to grin. "I told myself when I went on Oprah, I wouldn't cry." Nick laughed and tightened his hold on Greg's hand. He knew things weren't terrible if Greg was trying to crack jokes. "Hey, uh, I'm going to run to the men's room real quick. I have a reputation to maintain, you know."

Nick nodded, but didn't follow the other man when he got up. Greg needed a few minutes alone to collect himself. He found himself missing the heat of Greg's hand.

In the bathroom, Greg splashed some water on his face before looking at himself in the mirror. He didn't look any different than he normally did, except for the red eyes and the runny nose. But somehow, his world had shifted on its' axis. He had told Nick his deepest darkest secret, in the middle of a diner no less, and the man was still here. Maybe even still his friend. Greg actually felt lighter than he had in a long time.

When he got back to the table, the food had arrived, but Nick had politely waited for him to return before tucking in.

"Hey, man. We can get this stuff to go if you don't feel like eating anymore." Greg thought he just wanted to go home, but at the sight of the food, he realized he was famished.

"Nah, it's okay. Besides, I can't let a bowl of Lucky Charms go to waste."

They spent the rest of the meal making small talk, laughing at stupid jokes and arguing over video games. For that hour, it was almost as though the entire past year had never happened, and suddenly, things seemed like they might be okay again. Greg knew their conversation wasn't over, but for now, it felt like a delicious luxury to relax with a mellow Nick.

Later, as they walked out to the parking lot, Greg realized that he wasn't ready to let go of their tenuous connection. Once upon a time, Nick and he had been pretty good friends, best friends even, and it felt so good to have that back.

"Hey, Nick?" He asked. Nick turned away from his truck to look at Greg.

"You wanna come over for a beer or two?"

Nick grinned. "I was just gonna ask you the same thing."

A/N: Yeeps. I fear this thing might be getting a life of its' own. Feedback makes my day.