Title: Existence
By: geekwriter
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Greg ponders the nature of existence. Post-ep for "Down The Drain."

He sat down and let his head drop back against the wall. He knew he was getting roof dust on his ass but he didn't care. His iPod was in his jacket pocket, but he didn't bother getting it out. He sat on the roof with his eyes closed, his head tipped back against the wall, compressing the ache in the back of his neck.

He was sitting there, wasn't he? He was sitting there on the roof of the lab. He could feel the gravel that covered the roof's surface digging into his ass and the heel of his left hand. He could smell the smoke from his cigarette as it wound around into the air. He could hear traffic, birds, sirens somewhere in the distance. The sun was warm on his skin.

He opened his eyes and lifted his head up. Those were his feet in front of him. He could see his toes wiggle beneath the leather of his shoes. It was his hand holding the cigarette he'd bummed from Ginny, the dayshift A/V tech. He could move his fingers. He could think about the fact that he was moving his fingers, could see it, could feel it, could feel the calming rush of his blood as the smoke hit his lungs. He could feel the ache in the back of his neck and could feel it lessen as the sunlight warmed his muscles.

Somewhere to his right, someone cleared their throat.

He could move his head to look and could see it was Nick. Nick, that he felt belonged to him as much as his feet or his hand or the ache in his neck.

Nick was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, his weight on one foot. "Did you think I wouldn't be able to smell it?" he asked, raising his eyebrow.

"Sorry," Greg said, but he didn't put the cigarette out. He took another drag and tilted his face up to the sun.

"Look, G," Nick began, and Greg could tell by his tone of voice that he wasn't going to start a lecture about the dangers of smoking. How did he know that? How did he know that Nick would save the lecture until later?

Nick crossed the roof and sat next to him. Greg transferred his cigarette from his right hand to his left, because that way it would be harder for Nick to take it from him and put it out. Why was that important to him? What was it that made him value the cigarette so much? He knew it was going to kill him; that's why he'd stopped. Or had he? Had he only pretended to know it was going to kill him? Had he convinced himself that he knew that just so he could quit without feeling like he was changing himself to satisfy Nick?

"G," Nick said softly, "nobody gets through their first autopsy without—"

"I wasn't sick," he said. "I didn't feel sick at all."

Nick didn't seem surprised by that, just concerned. "Greggo—"

"Do you read a lot of Heidegger?" Greg asked.

Nick laughed softly. "No."

He scratched the top of his head. His scalp was warm from the sun. He knew Nick didn't read a lot of philosophy. They shared a bookshelf, after all, among other things, and Nick's books were mostly mystery novels and sports books and home-improvement manuals, plus an ever-growing collection of books that reflected Nick's odd fascination with birds.

"Do you believe in heaven?" Greg asked then.

"Of course," Nick said. He sat down next to Greg and rested his arms on his knees. "Why?"

"I don't," Greg said. "I don't think I even believe in God, let alone heaven and hell. I don't know. It's never something I've spent a lot of time thinking about, it just never seemed...I don't know. Logical."

Nick shrugged. "It's not about logic, it's about faith."

"I don't have that, either," Greg said. He took one last drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out. "At the autopsy, know what I saw?"

"An autopsy?" Nick guessed.

"Meat. That's all. Just a body. It was like...like looking at an animal carcass. And, yeah, I know humans are animals, I just...if I don't believe in God, if I know that we're just a collection of neural impulses..."

"You wanna know why it bothers you so much."

Greg nodded and leaned against him. "Yeah. Is that it? Our brain stops and we just...disappear?"

"I don't know what to tell you, baby."

"And if that's true, if as soon as our brain stops, we cease to exist, then what's real? A hundred years from now no one will ever know that I was in love with you. If it can disappear so easily, if this...if the most intense thing I've ever experienced in my entire life can just stop existing when I die, how can I even be sure it exists at all? If it's just a series of electrical pulses in my cerebellum then—"

Nick leaned over and kissed him, hard.

"Wha—?"

Nick kissed him again, slid his fingers through Greg's hair. "I don't have any answers," he whispered. "Nobody does. You can either sit up here and tear your hair out over it or you can come home and we can play the dirty version of name that chemical compound."

Greg reached up and stroked Nick's cheek. "I was trying to be all deep and shit, and you totally ruined the moment."

"Sorry. Come on." Nick stood up and offered Greg his hand. "The dirty version of name that chemical compound isn't going to play itself."

Greg smiled as he let Nick pull him to his feet. "I mean it, though, it was totally weird looking at a body and not even thinking of it as a human being anymore. I was totally detached, like nothing could touch me."

"Yeah, you say that now. You just wait until you get a tub full of human soup. You'll wish nothing could touch you."

"If I remember the smell correctly from the last time you had to investigate a tub of human soup, nobody *will* touch me."

"I'll touch you," Nick said.

"Liar. You'll give me a jar of tomato juice and a lemon and leave me to shower the stink off by myself."

Nick shrugged as he opened the door that led back into the building. "It would be only fair, considering how fast you cleared out when it was me who smelled."

"I told you, I had errands to run."

"You spent three hours at the arcade."

"They were very important video games."

"Prick," Nick said with a grin that made it clear he wasn't at all mad. "Speaking of smelling bad..."

"Oh," Greg said, "that's smooth."

"What?"

"Speaking of smelling bad? You're worse than one of those anti-smoking public service announcements."

"Well, you do stink."

"If you can handle the smell of a tub of human soup I think you can handle a little tobacco smoke."

Nick shrugged. "Yes, but I don't make out with tubs of human soup."

"I should hope not."

Nick grabbed Greg's arm just before they reached the door that led out of the stairwell and into the main floor of the lab. "I mean it," he said softly. "I want you around for a long time."

"I know," Greg said.

"Plus, you kind of taste like an ashtray."

Greg sighed. "Does this mean I'm going to have to brush my teeth before we play the dirty version of name that chemical compound?"

"A little mouthwash wouldn't hurt, either."

"Fascist," Greg said as he leaned on the door and pushed it open. "Oh, did I tell you I think Gris has a secret scat fetish?"

"What?" Nick asked with a laugh as they entered the hall and made their way past day shift towards the parking lot.

"He also thinks I may have something wrong with my prostate."

"Why is Gris checking your prostate?"

Greg grinned at him as they reached the front doors. "Wouldn't you like to know?" he asked before pushing them open and heading out into the sun.