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Working graveyard shift, it’s rare for them to get a chance to actually celebrate the nightlife that Las Vegas has to offer, let alone on a holiday such as New Year’s Eve that is the most celebrated night out of the three hundred and sixty five that occur within a year.
Luck is perhaps finally on Nick’s side, for his was one of the longest straws pulled for the honor of being on call and he has the fortune of being able to go out with the rest of the team—minus Grissom, who was on call and had to excuse himself before they even passed the threshold of what Greg described as the “best place” to celebrate the coming of the new year.
And it is, but the “best” part comes more from the shared company with the colleagues that are quickly becoming something...more than just that. He feels like he can call them all friends; Warrick, Catherine, Sara, and he’s even so bold to dare to think that perhaps, they’re even becoming some sort of family.
He’s hesitant to think that for a multitude of reasons—first off, they may not feel the same way. He’s far too eager for that sort of a connection, to be able to find new friends in this still uncharted territory of his life, because he left the old ones back in Texas. He’s also aware that he has a big enough family back in Texas that do genuinely love him, and would probably not appreciate him not just flying from the nest, but falling off of the tree entirely, and with how close he thought he had gotten to the teams he was part of in Dallas—both police and scientists alike—but there’s just something about this specific group that has him filled with hope.
Hope that he won’t be alone for the rest of his life, a fear that becomes overwhelming with each strike he bats with each attempt to have a true, intimate connection with someone. Either they can’t help carry his baggage, or else he just...loses them.
Loses himself in a self-destruction as he realizes that perhaps he’s meant to be alone. He’s damaged goods after all. Jaded and scarred because he was exposed and broken
Nick thinks he’s lost his group after he stumbles to the bar for another drink, just mere minutes before the clock strikes twelve, but a clap on the shoulder reminds him that he isn’t completely off the leash.
“Hey, just, uh, wanted to say thanks for inviting me!” Greg shouts over the pulsing rave, bringing his own empty glass to refill. “Nobody’s really invited me out to these shindigs before.”
“Well, thank you for suggesting this place. It’s, it’s really something!” Nick shouts back, gesturing for the bartender. “Whaddya drinkin’? ‘S on me.”
“Sex on the beach,” Greg grins as Nick’s cheeks glow.
“Straight and to the point, huh?” Nick laughs with his eyebrows raised.
“I’m anything but straight, Stokes,” Greg leans in, clapping a hand onto Nick’s chest which makes his body erupt with cold tingles spreading to his extremities although the heat levels from all the bodies packed into the club are enough to make him want to take his shirt off.
He settles for just the top two buttons of his oversized shirt tucked into his baggy khakis. Nick clears his throat and fumbles with the buttons, his eyes darting to see if there’s anybody besides Greg looking.
“Didn’t, uhm...didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Greg’s goofy laughter wanes as they await their beverages, noticing how Nick seems to be almost...frigid in the face of a couple of men nearby grinding on each other.
“Nah, nah, man, it’s cool. I’m-I’m cool about that stuff. Ain’t as high and tight as people assume about that sorta stuff. I’ve seen Brokeback Mountain—” Nick begins to ramble with nervous hand gestures and scratching the back of his head.
“If you say so,” Greg shrugs. “You bag a chick yet for when the bells chime? Only five more minutes…”
“Struck out. Rick’s the high roller of the night, though,” Nick nods behind Greg over to Warrick, shirt completely open and surrounded by a bunch of girls. “You get one? Or th-the other—?”
Greg spares him from finishing that sentence and shakes his head.
“Well, we can just stick together, I guess,” Nick smiles, picking up their drinks and holding Greg’s out to him.
“I’d like that,” Greg’s smile spreads from ear to ear and they find a rare unoccupied corner to keep to themselves as the rest of the crowd gathers towards the descending ball on the dance floor. They settle into the booth, squirming on the moist leather cushions—Nick has to manually turn off the itch in his head to bust out the ALS to figure out why it’s so wet—and his frown deepens as he watches Greg’s face, while plastered in a smile, tells a different story in his eyes.
“LAAAAAADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THERE IS JUST ONE MORE MINUTE UNTIL THE SECOND YEAR OF THE MILLENIA!”
“You know, you don’t...you don’t actually have to stick with me if you don’t wanta,” Nick whispers as the crowd hoots and hollers. The countdown starts at thirty seconds.
“No, Nick, I..I want…”
“TEN…NINE…EIGHT…SEVEN…SIX…”
Greg downs his drink and nearly chucks it to the nearby wobbly table as he grabs the folds of Nick’s shirt.
“FIVE...FOUR…”
He pulls Nick closer, and Nick doesn’t push him away—out of terror perhaps, Greg at first thinks, wondering if now is really the best time to peek into the closet and see if Nick’s in there.
Meanwhile, Nick is feeling that thrilling sensation he hasn’t felt in quite some time.
Hope.
“THREE...TWO…”
“I want you,” Greg breathes into Nick’s mouth, before they become one.
“HAPPY NEW YEAR!”
The club explodes in roars of laughter, cheers, drunken shouts and applause as the ball drops and air becomes filled with the celebration of the new year.
Nick feels goosebumps rise as the kiss continues a full minute into 2002, the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he can hear his name called by the other members of the team—
“Yo, Nicky!” Warrick shouts, walking past with two ladies on either side of his waist. “Happy New Year, bro!”
“Happy New Year!” Sara cheers as she sits herself between Nick and Greg. Nick was already inching himself towards the end of the booth anyway, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.
“Hey! Happy New Year!” Catherine playfully scratches the top of Nick’s head and wraps Greg and Sara in a sloppy side hug.
“Happy New Year!” Greg beams brightly.
“Happy New Year,” Nick mumbles, a little sheepishly, nearly choking on the drink that he swore had more in it last year.
His anxiety subsides as the group continues to celebrate together, Warrick asking his plastered new lady friends to take a picture—“We can ask Archie to photoshop Gil in later,” Catherine jokes which gets them all to genuinely smile for the dual-operated camera.
About an hour later, Nick’s almost completely back to normal, albeit with more intoxication that is loosening him up even more than Greg did; he bursts into fits of giggles that are contagiously spread around, and by the time the party dies down, he’s even closer to Greg than ever before, arms slung around each other as they stagger towards Nick’s car.
“You sure you’re okay to drive?” Greg hiccups.
“Course I am! Downed that whole plate of nachos and three glasses of water in record time, didn’t I?” Nick winks. “And I-I mean, we can just ya know. Chill here, for a bit, if you wanta.”
Nick’s fingers slowly move from the ball of the gear stick to Greg’s thigh.
“Mm, you’re peaching me so well tonight like I’m some sorta treat,”
“I think you mean treating you so well like you’re some sort of peach,” Nick giggles.
“Same difference,” Greg chuckles back.
He puts his hand on top of Nick’s, which seems to momentarily startle Nick with a rush of warmth that only adds to the rushing blood under the unappeased cold and clammy skin.
“A-anyway, I’m more than happy to be ‘Driving Mr. Sanders.’”
“And I’m more than happy to be driven by you...in so many ways,” Greg’s voice lowers into a more lust-filled tone that really scares Nick.
Tipsy giggles sizzle into the nauseating churn as Nick pulls his hand out from underneath Greg’s. He starts the car and begins to drive with both hands on the wheel, white knuckled grip and his bubbly giggles turning into nervous chuckles.
Greg thinks it’s because he’s activated some sort of panic alarm within Nick triggered by anything remotely gay.
But really, it’s because Nick doesn’t want this night to end.
Somehow the drive lasts longer than it should have, between Nick purposefully driving just below the speed limit and both men gazing up at the neon city that has never been brighter, but the wonder is lost once they reach Greg’s apartment.
“Do you want to come in?”
Yes.
“I...don’t think that’s a good idea,” Nick sighs. An echo, a flashback of both the best night and worst night of his life with the only woman he thought he might have had an actual chance with.
“What if I said I wanted you to?” Greg asks, in a bold move, sloppily cupping his hand onto Nick’s cheek.
Nick puts his hand on top, but slides both off.
“I’m sorry...that’s a wish I just...can’t grant, G.”
“You’re making it kind of hard, you know.”
“Making...what hard?” Nick sputters, risking a look down to Greg’s crotch.
“To love you.”
Greg pulls himself out of Nick’s car, ready to leave without another word but before he opens the front door, he glances backwards, and then runs back to the car that hasn’t left yet, hanging himself on the open passenger’s window ledge.
His mouth opens and closes a few times, before he just shakes his head and plasters on the same wild smile Nick’s used to seeing every day in the DNA lab.
“Goodnight, Nick. Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year,” Nick waves back half-heartedly with his own charming smile. Once Greg clears the threshold, he finally drives himself home, this time surpassing the speed limit by a couple numbers.
The panic has evaporated but the destruction is starting. His eyes burn, lamenting all of the wasted opportunities, all the mistakes, all of the failures of the past year in the face of the first conglomeration of those regrets that he’s made in record time, and the sun hasn’t even risen yet.
He knows better than to do this. To succumb to this unshakeable weight of living, the onslaught of intrusiveness that rains down on him when he locks himself within the safe confines of his home, his sanctuary. He leans his head against the door and looks up, having to blink a few times because he swears he sees a hole in the ceiling.
Multiple holes, stars flickering and burning behind his eyelids.
He’s just tired, that’s all.
He wipes his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, taking a deep breath and making the first step when he hears a knock on the door, and then another. Desperate knocks, and he desperately answers.
Greg passes through the door he’s always kept locked, and into Nick’s arms, tearing apart the rest of his shirt, pulling on the short fibers of his hair and nuzzling his nose, motioning his lips to practically eat Nick’s face; it’s a hunger Nick has, too, as his own lips gape open, tasting Greg’s breath on his wettening tongue.
Their mouths keep opening and closing on their skin, on each other, but no words are spoken between the intimate touches and exchange of breath and saliva.
When they are finally spoken, this time, Nick’s the one to say it.
“I want you,” he breathes, and he cups the back of Greg’s head, feeling the spikes of his hair rise up even higher between his fingers, squeezing his torso so tightly into Nick’s chest that it’s almost crushed.
Just like his hopes are, when he realizes he’s not hugging Greg, but the unused pillow from the empty half of his bed.
He sighs through his nose as he still lays his head on the pillow regardless, a faltering frown as his lips can’t help but twitch upwards when he sees the rays of light shine through the edges of his blackout curtain.
It is the dawn of a new day, a new year, and despite everything his mind is telling him, his heart is telling him something else via the most intimate fantasy he’s ever experienced; it’s not too late.
He reaches for his phone, still in his pants pockets, and though it takes him a while to craft between his continuing journey through the learning curve of new technology, and the buttons that are too small for his trembling thumbs, he sends Greg a message that he can only hope conveys all the emotions he’s feeling in just three pitiful words—
To new beginnings.