Disclaimer: I don't own them.
A/N: I hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving! :) Here's the next chapter. This is more like the non-summarizing version of episodes I was thinking about... Let me know whether you like this better or going through each case better. I think this is more dynamic, but it'll get hard to do in the episodes full of GSR moments... I'm thinking I'll probably go back and forth between the two types, but I'd still like your opinions.
Hope you enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 8: Geek vs. Greek
I liked Nick a lot. …Even if he called me out for flirting with him, in front of Grissom… even if his beautiful body displayed in the locker room only served to remind me that I really couldn't look at another man even in mere lust, because they could never live up to Grissom… even if he had been in a fraternity.
And he took my side. He had my back—that was nice to have from someone who wasn't Kelly or… getting some. …Life was bleak if that was why I appreciated someone taking my side—it was nice, because I didn't have to put out to expect it…
Regardless, he was growing on me. Greg and I had caught breakfast about once a week since I started… and maybe today I would invite Nick. He and Greg seemed to get along, after all, and Greg had started flirting again… not the harmless hitting-on-anything-female type flirting, or even the I-vividly-remember-how-you-sound-when-you-climax flirting… this was a little more direct, and seemed like he wanted it to go somewhere. If Nick came along, I could keep up what was quickly becoming a welcome tradition without worrying that Greg would misinterpret eggs and bacon for a breakfast date.
…This was strange behavior, for me. The weekly breakfasts and the extending invitations… Greg was kind of awkward and anti-social too, so I hadn't questioned the breakfasts… but the invitation? I suppose it makes sense though, when you look at the big picture. Well, I'm sure Nick has a hundred stories that begin this way—none of which I care to hear—but… It all started in a frat house.
A freshman had hung himself, apparently after being denied admittance into the "brotherhood." But it seemed… off. He hadn't left a suicide note, for one. …For another, pledging a fraternity or sorority was generally a… social activity. When people were depressed—enough to kill themselves—they were far more likely to retreat inward than attempt to reach out to strangers.
…It wasn't evidence, just… intuition.
At some point, I told myself, as Nick attempted to use his former Greek experience to get our suspects to open up, I would have to ask Nick whether he really believed all that brotherhood and family crap he was feeding them. …But I was sure he did.
I didn't trust the two "brothers" we were talking to—Matt and Kyle. They were too… flippant. Not upset enough about the idea of a body hanging from their ceiling… that would freak most people out, you know? And they kept giving what I referred to, in my head, as 'guilty answers.' The type of answers people think CSIs want to hear, but not the answers one gives when innocent…
"Was James depressed?" Nick asks, and I watch the faces of the boys. They don't waver or hesitate… they don't even think about the question. They give the affirmative answer that's expected.
"You could say that." …Like I said, flippant.
"Could you say that?" I counter, "I mean, the kid is eighteen years old, he's got his whole life in front of him… Why would he want to hang himself?"
"I don't know… he didn't get in?" He says this as if it's obvious… there's a hint of laughter in his voice.
"Get in?"
"The fraternity…" Incredulous at my question. I nod and look at the ceiling, my mouth actually open in surprise… incredulous myself that they believed that was a good reason to commit suicide. "Pledging, I mean… It's not easy."
"Apparently not." I snap.
Nick breaks in, steering the conversation away from my obvious dislike for the boys and for fraternities in general. "So… you guys let him know he wasn't getting in, right?" I glance at him, wondering if he's about to side with the Greeks over the geeks… waiting for the betrayal that seems imminent, though not unexpected.
"Yeah, I told him last night," speaks boy-on-the-stairs, who had hitherto remained quiet. "I'm the one responsible for dinging pledges."
"Big job?" I fight to reign myself in, not wanting Nick to be right if he pulls the emotional-detachment card. I can't help the sarcasm dripping from my voice, however. Everything about these two screams guilty. He just smiles back at me cockily. My voice is, at least, a little calmer when I speak again. "How'd he take it?"
"I think you know," comes the first boy's unapologetic response. My mouth opens in indignation and I look to the side again, because if I keep my eyes on his arrogant, self-satisfied, remorseless expression I will certainly lose my temper. …I just wanted to backhand the pair of them.
Of course, I didn't. I let Nick direct us out and back to the lab, to log in and begin to process evidence and photos, until ready for the autopsy… which, of course, sent us right back to guilty frat guy one and guilty frat guy two. There was ink on our dead pledge's genitals… and the Greeks were known for hazing.
After first lying and saying they didn't haze, they explained that they did have an 'initiation process.' Pledges had to accumulate points by having the girls on sorority row sign different body parts, from limbs at five points to genitals at one hundred.
They didn't say penis though. They said Johnson. I couldn't believe they had called it that. …My incredulous question of "Your johnson?" was followed by Nick attempting to explain that Johnson means penis.
Yes, I was aware, thank you.
So they tell us that they caught him in the bathroom signing himself and told the group before subjecting him to a beer shower. Even if they hadn't killed them, I desperately want to lock them up now. And I make my feelings on that abundantly clear, despite being rather uncertain which side of the fence Mr. Stokes is on.
"You humiliate him, in front of all the other actives—kid was so scared he had to sign himself—you give him a beer shower… and you don't call that hazing?"
They look uncomfortable under my scrutiny, and cast furtive glances at Nick, who had thus far made a point of stressing his frat days in what I hoped was simply an effort to make them feel comfortable and trusting so they'd open up to us… and I glance at him too, because now is the moment.
He realizes that all eyes have turned to him, and his face hardens without hesitation, his voice coming out even harder. "Answer the question, guys."
My face relaxes. Geeks beat the Greeks.
I think that's why, despite the revelations about the man that unfurled throughout the case, I invited Nick to breakfast.
And believe me, there were several alarming revelations, including the phrase "Humiliation, Initiation, Appreciation," the small detail that he'd kept a trout in his pants pocket for a week—I still wasn't sure if this were something dirty or just strange—and his knowledge of the secret, Greek meanings behind our DB's penis triangles—"She's a delt."
Right.
But we nailed them—thanks in great part to Nick suggesting we look for signs they'd performed the Heimlich Maneuver when he'd swallowed raw liver, and Nick finding the string they'd used to dangle it down his throat, and Nick convincing Matt to roll over on Kyle, who had killed James because his girlfriend had signed James' penis, with his talk of brotherhood and saving the house.
So finding myself seated across from the Texan, at Frank's diner, across from the lab, with men in uniform in the booths all around us, wasn't as strange as it should have been. Greg stole a bite of my omelet, Nick snatched a piece of my bacon, and I tried very hard to glare angrily at my geek friends… but I failed, a begrudging smile breaking my lips, which only served to encourage them.
But, really… that wasn't so bad.
