Title: Change Myself
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Greg Sanders
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Rating: PG-13
Table: 5_prompts, Written in the Stars challenge
Prompt: G14, Act in a more purposeful, productive way
Author's Note: Spoilers for the S4 CSI: Vegas episode "All For Our Country."
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.

***

Greg raised his face to the shower spray, closing his eyes and letting the hot water run over his body. He had gotten filthy at work today, but it had been worth it. He had spent the day out of the lab, doing what could be called field work, expanding his horizons.

Most people probably wouldn't call what he'd been doing "field work." He was fully aware that he was doing the dirty work no one else wanted to do, work that most CSIs would think was beneath them. Looking for that evidence hadn't been easy -- or clean.

But he'd done it, and he hadn't complained about being the one to do the grunt work. He'd been happy to do it, really; it was part of the training to be a CSI, and that was something that he welcomed. Every little bit of experience would help him to achieve that goal.

The other people on the team might laugh at that attitude, but for him it was the only one to take. No one seemed to take him seriously, thinking that he was nothing more than a lab rat and couldn't become a good CSI. But he was going to prove them all wrong.

Part of the problem was that he'd always had a tendency to act a little crazy, Greg thought ruefully, reaching for the bottle of shampoo in the shower. He'd never slacked off; he'd always gotten his job done. But he had always been a little goofy at the same time.

That probably made it a lot harder for people to believe that he sincerely wanted to do a good job as a CSI, or that he could be useful in the field. He should have known that having fun at work would come back to bite him in the ass sooner or later, he thought with a sigh.

No one had minded him playing music in the lab, but he'd always taken things a little further than that. He had never been the kind of person who could stay within boundaries; he had always liked to push barriers, to see how far he could go and how much he could get away with.

That had more or less given him the reputation of being a bit of a goofball, even though he got his work done, and everyone on the team acknowledged that he was good at what he did. After all, they did all want to come to him for their DNA work.

There were times when he almost didn't want to leave the lab; he was appreciated there, even if some of his colleagues thought he was a little flaky. But he didn't want to be hemmed in by those four walls for the entirety of his career with the crime lab.

He wanted to be out in the field, working as a CSI. It didn't matter that he would have to take a pay cut; money had never been the issue. He wanted to feel like the was doing something more purposeful than he did now, something that put him right in the middle of a case.

Greg ducked his head under the shower water again, rinsing away the shampoo and then tilting his head back to be sure that it had all rinsed out of his hair. It was silly to feel that he wasn't an intrinsic part of the team where he was, he scolded himself, shaking his head.

He was in the middle of things by working in the lab. He was often the one who supplied a link that helped the CSIs to break a case -- but he wanted to be one of the people who actively worked the case, who went out there and collected the evidence from the scene.

Even though he always got the work done in the lab, there was something missing from what he did there that he only felt in the few times he'd been out in the field with the CSIs. He'd only gotten a small taste of that, but it had left him wanting more.

The main problem was that Grissom didn't think he was capable of handling himself professionally -- and that was largely his own fault. He had to start acting in a more purposeful, professional way when he was at work, even if that was foreign to his personality.

Did it really matter so much if he played loud music and colored his hair, as long as he was productive at work and got his job done --and did it well? Greg asked himself, leaning against the cool tiles of the shower. It shouldn't, at least not in his eyes.

But it wasn't how he saw his job that was so important now, he reminded himself with a sigh. It was how Grissom saw him, and whether the older man was willing to give him a chance at what he really wanted to do. He had to prove that he was capable.

At least he'd managed to start on that today, he told himself, taking a deep breath as he reached down to turn the water off. He had shown Grissom that he was willing to do the work that no one else wanted to bother with, that nothing was below him.

It really hadn't been all that bad, either, he reflected, pulling the shower curtain back and stepping out onto the fluffy bath mat. Yes, he'd had to get down on the ground and fish around in a drain, but he'd found what they had been looking for.

He might not be the kind of person that Grissom was looking for to add to his team of CSIs, but today had helped him prove something to his boss. He'd shown that he could do the job that Grissom needed him to do -- and that he could be professional.

So maybe getting down on his hands and knees in the street to fish evidence out of a gutter hadn't been the most professional thing in the world to do, Greg told himself as he picked up the fluffy towel lying by the bathroom sink. It had still been a good start.

He had shown Grissom -- as well as the rest of the team -- that he was serious about training to be a CSI. It had hopefully proved to them that he would go to great lengths to get a job done -- and that he wasn't the flaky, goofy kid that he knew he still came off as being sometimes.

Greg wrapped the fluffy towel around his waist, reaching for another one to dry his hair with as he peered at himself in the mirror. He still did look like a kid, but he had to lose that goofiness that had always characterized who he was at work.

Yes, he had his serious side. He could get the job done as well as, if not better than, anyone else working in the lab. But he'd always liked to have fun with what he did. If that made him a lesser candidate for a job as a CSI, then maybe he needed to change that about himself.

That wouldn't be easy to do, he admitted, sighing again. He didn't want to turn into a boring stuffed shirt who didn't know how to have fun with his job. He knew when to be serious; he'd proved that time and time again, and his colleagues should know that he wasn't all fun and games.

He wouldn't change himself completely. He couldn't. He wouldn't give up the fun, irreverent side of who he was, not even for the chance to become a CSI and get out of the lab. Greg stared at himself in the mirror, knowing that no matter how much might want to, he couldn't change himself.

But he could do his job more purposefully, with more professionalism, and he was resolved to do just that. It might not be easy to tame the wilder side of his personality, but he was determined to do it, Greg told himself firmly. The rewards would be far more than worth it in the long run.

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