Nick woke up with a start, his heart racing against his ribcage and his pulse throbbing in his ears. His mouth and throat were so dry that he was having trouble breathing. His head was spinning, adding to his already dizzy state and making his headache even worse. His hands were shaking for mutiple reasons, one of which being the nightmare he had just had. He couldn't remember the nightmare, he never could. That was a good thing, because they technially weren't nightmares. They were more like movies he watched in his head that he starred in. He replayed the previous day or night's events in his head while he slept, and when he woke up, he couldn't remember them. He always made sure he wouldn't remember them and that he'd feel better after doing the things he did.
Nick subconsciously grabbed the inside of his left elbow with his shaking right hand and laid back down into his pillows. He closed his eyes, finally becoming aware of the scar tissue he could feel under his hand. It hadn't been long enough, he thought, and he shouldn't have that on his arm. He didn't think he did it as much as he really did, but the feeling under his hand told him he was wrong. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter and tried to catch his breath, but by now he knew that it was going to take a few moments for him to do so.
The worst part was that he knew he had no other choice than to do what he's been doing. It was working, maybe a little too well, but working nonetheless. He wished it didn't so that he wouldn't keep doing it, but at the same time he was glad it was so that he had something to take the edge off it all and calm him down so he wouldn't go completely insane. He hated that he needed it, but despite that he was happy he had it. He had tried other ways of coping, but there were none.
Nick had never done drugs before in his life. He had never felt the desire and thought it was a stupid way to slowly kill yourself. He had known a lot of people in high school and college that did all sorts of drugs, but even though he was friends with some of those people, he never did them himself. He never wanted to do that or needed to do that. Until now.
Being a CSI in Vegas wasn't easy. Being a gangster in Vegas wasn't easy. Being both, at the same time, in Vegas was probably the most strenuous and difficult thing anyone could ever attempt to do, and Nick was that person. He was balancing trafficking drugs, half running casinos and sports books and fixing up cars to sell with solving cases similar to the crimes he himself was committing. Sometimes he was trying to solve a case with his own crime in it, and of course they were never solved. They never turned up any evidence. Nick hated that the most because that, added to what Jack, his father and brother kept telling him, only proved that he was very good at what he was doing, despite it's legality. Or lack thereof.
So Nick had needed to find a way to keep himself from freaking out. He needed to find a way to try and forget the bad things he was doing so he could sleep at night and live with himself. He didn't want to think about the drugs and cars he cold or the people he's seen die right in front of his eyes just because they made a stupid decision and were too greedy. He didn't want any of that in his head, and Mike had had the perfect solution.
Nick had actually been pretty drunk the first time Mike had handed him the needle. Nick had been trying to use alcohol to surpress his emotions, but it didn't work as well as he had hoped. Mike knew all too well how he felt, and wanted to help him. He knew that the heroin would work, and it did. It calmed Nick down after giving him a rush of euphoria and eventually made him feel as if the things he did were just illusions. Nick's mind successfully tricked him into thinking that the things he did really were bad dreams that he could just forget about and move on, guilt free.
Nick opened his eyes and glanced at the clock on his nightstand. He still had two hours before he had to be at work. He sighed as he looked at the clock. He never even had to set the alarm anymore because he knew that he would either still be awake by the time it was time to go to work, or that he wouldn't sleep enough to over-sleep. So with a heavy sigh, Nick got out of bed and headed for the bathroom. He stripped off his clothes and stood under the steady spray of the hot water, trying to let it wash him away completely. He stood there, his eyes closed and head down, still clutching his left arm with his still shaking right hand.
Nick didn't look where Warrick was currently looking because he already knew what it was all too well. So instead of looking there, he looked at Warrick, who eventually looked back up at him with something Nick had seen in the other man's eyes only a handful of times. None of those times had even been good, and Nick knew that this time was going to be no different.
Nick felt Warrick's grip on his wrist intensify, causing him mometary pain before Warrick threw his arm back down by his side. He glared at Nick, tight jawed and definitely not too happy. Nick looked down at the floor and pulled his sleeve back down to its orignial position it had had before Warrick had rolled it up to reveal the marks he knew would be on Nick's arm.
"I can explain," Nick said, looking back up at Warrick.
Warrick folded his arms across his chest. "Good, I'd love to hear one."
Nick took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I know you're gonna hate me for this, and that be that as it may, but I need to do this."
"Why?" Warrick asked.
"If I don't, then I remember all the things I'm doing. I can't sleep or eat or do anything without it. It calms me down and helps me forget. I have to forget what I'm doing Warrick," Nick said quietly.
"If that's the case," Warrick replied, "then do you think that you should be doing the things you're doing in the first place? If you have to use heroin to make you forget something, you shouldn't be doing it."
"I have to go through with this, I don't have a choice."
"Yes you do!" Warrick nearly yelled.
Nick shook his head slowly. "I never did."
"Yes you did. You decided to go into this mob life. You decided to risk your life for no good reason, and now you decided to use drugs to make you forget that you've become like them."
Nick felt a lump forming in his throat. "I'm not like them, I am them, and it's scaring the hell out of me."
"Well it should," Warrick said. "It's scaring me too. I feel like I don't even know you anymore man. You're this different guy that everytime I see, all I can think about is what I know you're doing. I know you're doing the very things we try and prevent, and I know you're good at it because we haven't had to try and catch you yet."
"I'm doing this to help," Nick said.
Warrick shrugged slightly. "Help who? It's not helping the FBI. It's actually making it worse for them because you're so fucking good at being a criminal that Sparazza's making even more money, and they can't stop him or you. It's sure as hell not helping you because you're not you anymore. You don't even look the same. You're skinnier and paler because you're a drug addict now, and I would bet a lot of money on you not sleeping much anymore."
"I'm helping everyone, even if it doesn't seem like I am," Nick replied. "I'm helping the FBI because Mike and my dad and Jack are telling me everything. Working with them makes me a better CSI because it's like working backwards, already knowing the answer."
"That works both ways though," Warrick said. "Being a criminal makes you a better CSI, and being a CSI makes you a better criminal."
"Do you think I like being like this?" Nick asked.
Warrick nodded. "It seems like it."
"Well I don't," Nick said. "I don't like lying to my friends and everyone else I know. I don't like having to be two different people and trying to be me at the same time. I can't be me because I don't even know who the fuck I am anymore."
Warrick sighed. "Neither do I," he said softly before he turned around and walked out of the locker room, leaving Nick standing there, alone.
As he watched the door close behind his best friend, there were several things Nick wanted to do. He wanted to go after Warrick and force him to understand that he didn't want to be the way he was and do the things he was doing. He wanted his best friend to be able to trust him. But deep down, Nick didn't blame Warrick, or anyone else for not fully trusting him because he had, in fact, changed drastically.
Nick wanted to yell as loud as he could and hit something as hard as humanly possible to try and release his frustration. But he knew that neither of those would do him any good. He honestly wished he could think of another way to make things right, but infultrating the mob that just so happened to be run by his father and brother was the only way. He was sick of living in fear and not knowing what he meant to be like. No matter what anyone told him, Nick still thought that he was always supposed to have been a Sparazza from the get-go, but Jack had changed all that to protect him.
Nick tried to clear his head of everything that was floating through it as he drove out of the crime lab parking lot. He tried to have his thoughts be the exact same as the atmosphere surrounding him in his car - comeplete silence, absolutely nothing. He didn't want to think about how he was losing his best friend and all his other friends because he may or may not be being selfish and stupid by trying to pull off a double life in hopes of attaining an unknown goal.
Nick knew where he was going to end up without even having to think about it. He didn't have to think once about where to go as he drove, seemingly aimlessly, to his destination. He knew he would end up there sooner or later, so he figured he'd just get it over with now so he wouldn't have to postpone the inevitable. Besides, he could really use a beer and a good talk with an old friend right about then anyway.
Nick didn't have to knock on Jack's door. For one, the door was unlocked. And for two, Jack had been expecting him anyway and was already sitting on the couch with two cold beers on the coffee table in front of him. Nick sat down in the recliner across from Jack and picked up one of the beers on the table. He took a long drink from it before holding it in both of his hands between his knees and looking up at Jack, who had been looking at him the whole time.
"All this bullshit finally starting to catch up with ya huh," Jack said as a statement more than a question.
Nick nodded slightly. "Yeah," he said quietly.
Jack took a sip of his own beer before resting it on his thigh. "Your dad's so proud of you," he said. "I would be too if I didn't know any better. Ya know, part of the reason I kept you away from this is because I knew you'd be good at it. Hell, you're better than I was."
Nick straightened up in his seat. "That's what he wants with me," he said, thinking aloud. "He wants me to take over."
Jack sighed. "He wanted to see if you could do it. I knew you could and didn't want to put that on you."
"Put what on me?"
"An ultimatum," Jack replied. "Ya know that saying that goes 'you don't get to pick your family' ?" Nick nodded. "Well, you get to. You have two completely different families who love you, both differently, but they love you nonetheless. Some people don't even have one family that loves them, and you get two."
"So what's my ultimatum?" Nick asked.
"What's the real lie?"
"I'm not a real criminal Jack," Nick said. "I'm doing it for a reason."
"Have you figured out that reason yet?" Jack asked. Nick remained silent, so Jack continued. "Becasue I have. I know exactly what you want, and I'm tellin' ya kid, it doesn't exist."
Nick shook his head slightly. "What doesn't?"
"Vindication," Jack answered. "You wanna be freed from all the guilt and fear you've had all of your life. You wanna prove to yourself that this isn't you and get it off your chest. You want everything off your shoulders."
"So why doesn't that exist?"
Jack sighed again. "Because someone's gotta do it. Someone has to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders, and no one else has the guts to do it. That's what makes you that guy, because you're looking for something that doesn't exist. You're trying to do the impossible just because people think you can't."
Nick ran his hands through his hair. "Maybe I should have started running a long time ago."
"Hey," Jack said, regaining Nick's attention. "If you run from something, it only stays with you longer. If you fight something, it only makes you stronger."