Title: Green Grass Gardenia
Author: amazonqueenkate
Pairing: Nick Stokes/Bobby Dawson
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Theme: #11: Gardenia
Warnings: the f-word; drug use; character death; slight AU; grass in Texas
Disclaimer: I do not own the show, but I do play with the characters.
Author's Notes: "Grave Danger" spoilers. Valium is often prescribed in situations like this. You'll figure out what "this" is when you read it. ;) Special thanks to hawkeyecat for the read-through. :)

He smells gardenias.

He knows he should be able to smell more than just gardenias, because they're outside in the middle of what is, essentially, a vast field, but all he can smell are the gardenias he's holding. He realizes only belatedly that it's an odd place to be - he's never thought about there being grass, of all things, in Texas - and that it's very warm. The sun beats down on his dark suit, on his skin and hair and eyelashes, and all he can smell is gardenia.

The flowers are white. They're all white and have all been white, as they'd discussed. No, not discussed. He hadn't managed to have a word in edgewise, which seems somewhat unfair. He's part of this, too. Sure, not as big a part, but still a part. Still involved.

That seems an unfair word. He's more than just "involved." He's... He's inexorably linked. Another good "i" word, inexorable. Completely appropriate. And because he's inexorably linked, he should have been allowed input on the damned gardenias.

He wonders if he should have only taken one valium, instead of two. The doctors had said one at a time. Just one. But he'd felt so shaky, so out-of-control after the one, he'd had to take the second. Maybe that'd been unwise.

He feels as though he's floating and falling, lost in a sea of dark-suited men and women, treading water above gardenias.

Some of the faces, he recognizes. Grissom, Sara, Greg, Warrick, Catherine... He knows them. Their visages float in front of him, blurry, unfocused, all teary-eyed and tight-lipped and dressed in black. Except Greg's dress shirt under his suit is bright purple, and really, that's just tacky. He wants to go up to Greg and rip that damn shirt off his chest and stomp on it. The royal purple against the emerald green grass that shouldn't be in Texas. That would be appropriate, he thinks to himself. Green and purple. Excellent combination, those colors together. He remembers being a child, painting with forest green and sunset purple and fire red.

Fire ant red. His stomach twists, and he tries to focus on something - the preacher, the sky, the ground, anything - but he suddenly feels as though he's going to throw up valium - loads of valium, because that's all he's been doing, taking valium - and he swallows down the nausea with considerable effort. A hand lands on his shoulder and he looks down at Hodges - no, no, David, he calls him David because they're friends, everyone else calls him Hodges - and he notices David watching him carefully and cautiously. Lips form some blurry words and he just nods, even if that's the wrong answer, because he feels incredibly loose and he's not sure he could shake his head even if he wanted to.

He wants to, actually. He wants to shake his head at all of this. At the gardenias and the deceptively green Texas graveyard that shouldn't be grassy in the first place, at Sara and Catherine and Warrick and Greg's purple fucking shirt. He wants to shake his head and stay in bed all day, like he'd wanted to a week ago, like he'd begged and pleaded and even whined when the alarm went off. He wants to shake his head at the alarm, and at stupid fucking coin tosses, and at stupid men with stupid fucking grudges, and at stupid fucking casual breakfasts that turned into stupid fucking casual love that leaves him here, in a graveyard, in the middle of May. With stupid fucking gardenias that Nick wouldn't have wanted, because despite what anyone else thinks of him, he actually loved vibrant colors, like cardinal red and jay blue and the yellow canary that he thought no one at work knew he owned.

And fuck it all, he's crying now, and he realizes he's crying only after his tears start rolling off the petals of the gardenias in his hand. David's arm actually slips around his shoulders, warm but yet so cold, and completely uncomforting. He shrugs it off, or at least tries to, but his muscles won't cooperate. He feels like he has nothing left, except the stomach-churning smell of god-fucking-damn gardenias. He never wants to see a gardenia again. He wants to burn them all, along with this graveyard and Greg's shirt.

He wants to go back. Go back to a week ago, when he pulled Nick back into bed and begged that he play hooky just once and stay by his side for a night. He wants to be in that moment, right now, back in the one chance he had to change fates. He wants to wipe the smug, sweet smile off Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes' face and scream, "Dammit, Nick, if you go to work, you'll fuckin' die! Is that what you want?"

But more than that, more than all of that, he wants Nick to lean down and kiss him again, the way he had when he was leaving: a sweet, open-mouthed, lingering kiss just before the normal "goodbye, love you" that Nick always gave him because Nick was just that kind of sweet. He wants to go back to that warmth and acceptance, that love, and he wants to seize Nick around the shoulders and drag him back down, kiss him with lips and teeth and tongue and make him know that he belongs there, that he is loved, that he matters. He wants to assure himself that Nick spent every moment of every day, including that last one, knowing that he was appreciated and loved from the inside out, and that he knows he didn't die alone.

But he can't do that. All he can do is stand at the funeral and cry, listening to the preacher drone on about second lives, and smelling those stupid gardenias.