Title: Bent
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Greg Sanders
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Rating: PG-13
Table: Song Shuffle Challenge
Prompt: "Bent," by Matchbox 20
Author's Note: This was written for the Friday Flash Fiction: Song Shuffle Stories challenge at the Terrible Minds blog.
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Greg Sanders, unfortunately, just borrowing him for a while. Please do not sue.

***

Bent.

Greg hated that word. The word that people had used to describe him ever since he was a child.

He'd heard that taunt ever since he could remember. When he had turned down an invitation to go to a football game with a friend and his father in the fifth grade, those words had rung in his ears for days. "You don't like football? You're bent, Sanders."

The same thing had happened in high school. He'd been called that word when he had chosen to work on a chemistry experiment rather than go to a school dance. He'd heard it over and over again, so many times that it seemed like a mantra.

He was "bent" for being the captain of the chess team, for having overprotective parents, for not doing all of the things that most rebellious high school kids did.

If only they had known who he truly was deep down inside, those people would have sneered at him even more, and thought of worse names to call him.

What would they have said if they knew that he liked guys more than girls? Greg almost allowed himself a small, wry smile at the thought. He would have suffered through a lot more taunts than he had, and he'd known it. That was why he'd never let anyone know.

All these years later, he was still keeping that secret.

What would Nick, Grissom, and all the other people he worked with on a daily basis think if they knew that he wasn't the skirt-chaser he pretended to be? What would they think if they knew that Grissom and Nick were much more his type than the girls he pretended to be interested in?

Would they call him "bent," too? Would the taunts start up again, only this time feeling a million times worse because they came from people he trusted and admired?

Nick had already let that word fly, though he'd had no idea of the memories it had stirred up. Greg had mumbled some excuse and left the office they'd been in, unable to stand there and feel those memories flooding back over him again, hating the sound of that word.

Just one syllable. One simple, short word. How could that one single word still have such power? How could it still wound him as badly as it had years ago?

He had hoped that he'd never have to hear that word again, but that had apparently been too much to hope for. It had stayed in the back of his mind only to jump out at him now, here at work, just as ready to wound as it had always been.

He shouldn't be so surprised to find that hearing it now left deeper wounds than ever before.

***