Title: Common Criminal
By: flipflopadd1ct
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Nick analyzes the room like he would a crime scene.

***

Nick analyzes the room like he would a crime scene.

He's awake, sitting up with the sheets around his waist in a bed that isn't his - Greg's bed. Next to him, Greg slumbers, blissfully unaware of Nick's inner turmoil.

Greg sleeps and Nick thinks. Nick thinks about the crime he committed last night. It was stupid, really. A spur of the moment thing. Nick's selfish motive for the dastardly deed? Sex. He just wanted sex. Needed it. And apparently Greg needed to get some, too, but when they decided to leave the bar Nick got the impression that Greg was expecting it to be more than sex.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Nick can pinpoint every detail of his mistake. Because, no, it wasn't just sex. It was most definitely a mistake.

He didn't have plans of getting involved with Greg. Well, the most Nick might have wanted was a few meaningless fucks here and there when there was nowhere else to turn. He didn't expect, as Greg led him through the door with a million-watt grin on his face, that it would be this complicated. Ask anyone - Greg doesn't seem like the type to settle down.

And maybe Nick's wrong in his assumptions. Maybe, if he left, Greg wouldn't be hurt. Maybe everything would be okay.

But the more insistent side of his brain refutes Nick's small shred of hope. Something in the look in Greg's eyes and the way he touched and talked seemed to be concealing even deeper emotions that Nick likely, probably, definitely shouldn't have toyed with.

Nick can't help but process this scene like every other scene he sees on a daily basis. The crime here isn't a homicide, though. Nick can't really put a name to it. What he's sure of is that the victim doesn't even know, yet, that he's been hurt.

The first thing Nick noticed when he awoke was his surroundings. He made mental notes of Greg's room - how dark it was, how the faint odor of sex and sweat still hung in the air, how the thick blinds let a few simple slats of light shine through. His eyes focused and everything became clearer.

A trail of clothes, as telling as blood drops, is spattered from the living room to the foot of the bed. Nick sees his shirt and Greg's boxers closest to his side of the bed. Through the open door he spots the remains of a lamp that he or Greg - he couldn't remember who - had kicked over during the intense make-out session that had stretched from the apartment complex stairwell to Greg's room. He knows a condom lies in the trash, soaked with his DNA. He knows that if anyone cared to fingerprint Greg's apartment they'd find Nick's marks on the front door, on the coffee table, on the headboard.

Greg sighs in his sleep. Nick looks over, thinking Greg's about to wake, but Greg does not rise.

Nick wonders what will run through Greg's head when he awakes. He decides he doesn't want to be around when Greg does so. No, he would just make things worse. Fuck it up even more. So Nick calmly, quietly steps out of the bed and reaches down for his clothes.

He gathers his things quickly, as best he can without losing his nerve. It's a lost cause, Nick knows, because even the world's smartest felon couldn't find a way to erase his presence in a situation like this.

Nick tries not to think about the tiniest slivers of evidence that still remain. Hairs in Greg's sheets. Fiber transfer on Greg's clothes. And then there's Greg himself, who has all the memories and all the sensations unreachable inside. They would remain the longest. Nick takes one last look at Greg from his spot by the couch and Greg's so-far-unmarred serenity is almost pathetic.

Nick shuts the front door softly, then leans against it and takes a deep breath. He lets the nervous knot in his stomach settle before setting off down the hall. He's nothing but a common criminal now.

***