Title: Other People's Expectations
Pairing: Gil Grissom/Nick Stokes
Author: podga
Warnings: None really, any references to episodes are vague and from previous seasons.
Disclaimer: Do I really need this?

I always feel like I have to live up to expectations. As far back as I can remember, my actions had been defined by what others expect of me ... or maybe by what I expect of myself, sometimes it's hard to distinguish between the two. In my most introspective moments, I know that my strongest expectation of myself is to live up to the expectations of others and win their approval; it's what drives me. But (luckily, perhaps) I don't do introspection or self-awareness too often or too long.

The baby of the family, I was showered with love and affection and it was fully expected that I be a happy, loving little boy, who would grow into a happy, loving man. Later, my looks and build led to expectations that I participate in team sports, join a fraternity, be popular. My older sisters confided in me about their love lives (triumphs, disasters, whatever) and I know that while they were trying to get a guy's point of view about their tribulations, they were hoping I'd also get the message about what women expect of men as their friends, lovers, companions, and that I'd live up to that, as well.

Some aspects of my life are all my own, but even those have been tempered by the expectations of others. In school I was as interested in science as in sports; after some detours, I've become a scientist, only not one confined to a lab. A traumatic incident in my childhood proved to me that people aren't always what they seem and can't always be trusted, even though I concealed both the incident and that dawning understanding in my constant effort to live up to my image, to be well-adjusted, outgoing, happy. As for what my sisters taught me, well, they certainly helped me understand what I expect of a man; and surely what men and women expect of their lovers and companions can't be that different, so I also know (theoretically at least) that I can be a good lover and companion in return. Once I find him, at any rate. Or once he finds me.

I know why I like, even admire, my co-workers so much, even though I'm not really like them and never moved in the same circles as them. It's because they haven't succumbed. Catherine, Warrick, they beat the low expectations other people had of them, and Greg ... well, Greg has probably defied any expectation, high or low, anybody has ever had of him. Sara's probably more like me, having to live up to high expectations always, but even she puts up more of a fight, tries to follow her own direction in life. Not that I don't, it's just that I'm not always sure where others' direction ends and mine begins

I wouldn't say my whole life is a pretense. My emotions are genuine and I accept them, even show them. So I can be more involved and responsive when working cases than Warrick or Sara are, I can show my affection for Greg, I can even tell Catherine something I've never told anyone else. I know people like me and I like that, so I work at it.

On the other hand, perhaps there's enough pretense in my life that I get more than my fair share of bad things. There must be some Eastern philosophy or religion that explains it all: if you're not true to yourself, you have bad karma. But I was born and raised in Texas, so after each bad thing, I just get up, dust myself off and get on with my life. OK, I can allow myself some mending time (after all, even John Wayne staggered around a bit when he fell off a horse or got sucker-punched), but pretty soon I have to get back to being the Nick everyone, even I, knows and feels comfortable with.

But here, today, riding shotgun in on my way back from a crime scene, absently picking at a small bump on the web of my right thumb that didn't used to be there (a scar from an infected fire ant bite, a small physical memento from my latest bad thing), I'm not thinking about how I got to be who I am. What I am thinking is, I gotta stop mooning around like a 12-year old schoolgirl. Only one problem: despite the fact that I'm staring out my window, I can still see his right hand in my peripheral vision. On my left arm, which is leaning on the armrest, I can feel (perhaps imagine?) the warmth emanating from Grissom, despite the air conditioning, despite the physical distance the Denali provides.

I wish the crime scene had been less routine ... and God, when did I come to think of crime scenes as "routine" ... because there's nothing to occupy my mind. Nothing other than what it would feel like if I reached out my hand and wrapped it around the hand on the steering wheel. I don't think further than that. I don't think about how Grissom might react, what he might say; I just keep on running the same scene over and over in my mind, actually feeling Grissom's knuckles under my palm, slightly cool at first from the air condition vent, the small hairs on his fingers and his wrist soft under my fingers and thumb. I've always heard the expression "having butterflies in one's stomach", but in my case it's inaccurate. The butterflies are up in my heart and maybe lungs; there's wriggling, squirming worms in my stomach.

I'm not sure when I became infatuated with Grissom. I look for the one defining moment, but there really wasn't one. I remember the time I stared a bit too long into Grissom's clear blue eyes, but I was angry, trying to understand what silk and cows have to do with my doing my job well, to figure out what I ever liked, even admired, in a supervisor who would use a stupid word game to prove a point about my competence. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that the feelings were only respect and admiration before the incident and dislike and disappointment during it, but my sudden realization of how blue his eyes were, my sudden loss of concentration, maybe made it a moment.

I also remember when he pushed me about whether I had agreed with his decision to end a case. When I told him I wasn't him and he told me that we didn't need another him. I felt good about it, because it was about as close as I ever got to hearing a compliment from him, but deflated the next moment: his acknowledging that he's not always right ... actually it's not the first or last time he's admitted that ... wasn't exactly the same as saying that I was right. And that mattered a lot to me, it still does, more than it matters what other people think about me.

So all I can say is that it's lots and lots of moments and sometimes, it's not even the moments themselves, but what comes before or afterwards. For example, today it's the drive back to the lab and my wanting to feel his hand under mine, even though the real moment was probably more than three hours ago, when he grabbed my hand and helped me out of a ditch I'd climbed in to check out whether some trash lying there was connected to the crime scene (it wasn't, but we bagged it anyway). Maybe the real moment is even further back, dimly remembered, a palm that centered me and gave me strength, even though I couldn't reach or feel it through the plexiglass,

So here I am. And the funny thing is, if you asked me a while back how I would imagine my perfect companion, hell, if you asked me today, I wouldn't describe Grissom. I don't imagine my perfect companion being 15 years older than me and in need of some exercise. I don't imagine him having a beard or eating insects or with a sense of humor that seems to mostly come out when he's standing over a dead body. I don't imagine someone so aloof or withdrawn, so hard to understand or read. (Here's something about me: when I was a kid and watched Star Trek with my sisters, they always loved Spock, but I liked Kirk. They thought it was because Kirk always gets the girl, and that was part of it, OK, a big part of it, but it was because Kirk was out there emotionally. You never had to wonder what Kirk was thinking or feeling. You'd know what Kirk expected of you and whether you were fulfilling his expectations.)

And yet... And yet, when I imagine my perfect companion, I do imagine Grissom's eyes, a clear blue, and the curly hair, and the voice. I do imagine his innate kindness, which is sometimes evidenced at the most unexpected moments, his acceptance and child-like curiosity when he encounters something new, his determination and tenacity when he's working a case. I do imagine his long legs (maybe not so bow-legged) and his solid presence and the way the hairs on his forearms glint in the light. Most of all, for my perfect companion, I imagine Grissom's ability to be himself, not to let others define how he should behave or react, to accept himself without apology or prevarication.

If Grissom ever loved me, it would have to be for who I really am; because nobody so honest with himself would accept dishonesty in someone else. And I think that's probably why I've never even gotten to the point where he accepts me or approves of me, like he accepts Catherine, or Warrick, or Sara. Because he somehow knows that I'm pretending to be something that maybe I'm not.

And so, I sit here, staring out the window, imagining his hand under mine, trying not to read hidden meanings or emotions in his words to me, he's been rambling about his racing cockroaches, so that's not very hard ... except that Grissom is never uncomfortable being quiet, so why is going on and on about a subject that he knows I can't possibly be that interested in? ... trying to be what he expects of me. Only this time there won't be any pretense, because what Grissom expects is for me to understand and be my true self.