Title: The Point of No Return
By: Daniella
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Characters: Greg
Genres: humor
Rating: PG13
Warnings: none
Summary: Greg does some early Christmas shopping.

The trick was to look as inconspicuous as possible, Greg Sanders had decided. Dark sunglasses, a baseball cap, plain clothes that didn't have any distinguishing markings on them. Either he wouldn't be noticed at all or the shop owners would expect him to shoot up the place. He hoped for the former, because he wanted his task to be as quick and painless as possible.

Of course, the quick-and-painless thing might have been easier to accomplish if he had more of a plan, which he didn't. Greg had spent so much time focusing on how to get there without being seen or intercepted that he had completely forgotten about what to do once he did. Later on, when he thought back on it, he realized that there were many less painful routes he could have taken, but no, Greg must have been feeling masochistic that day, he had to go all out.

So here he was, looking as twitchy and nervous as a teenage shoplifter, his face white, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket, looking over his shoulder every few seconds, just to be sure he hadn't been followed.

And, taking a deep breath, Greg Sanders took the plunge; he stepped over the threshold into a place no man in his right mind would ever enter: the Country and Western section at the local FYE.

It was then, this crucial moment, this point of no return, that Greg realized his fatal mistake: he had no idea what he had come in for. He could have at least asked Nick for some guidelines, thrown in some badly disguised hints somewhere that he was going to be shopping for the older man's Christmas present, but no; Greg had decided to run at this blindly. Smart move, dumbass.

He poked around the aisles awkwardly, picking up a CD here and there to examine the cover. Meanwhile, he was racking his brain trying to remember any time when Nick might have thrown a country music reference into their conversation, but nothing was coming up. Maybe that was because Nick knew he despised the stuff so he never bothered to talk about it, and at the moment, Greg wanted to punch him for being so wonderful and considerate.

"Can I help you?"

He was mulling over some sort of anthology called Dreams of Texas (it was a stupid title with stupid cover art, but Nick was from Texas, that had to be a good sign, right?) when the voice made him jump.

"What? Err… no. Just browsing. Not for me, for a friend." He said quickly, trying not to make eye contact.

The teenaged employee raised a pierced eyebrow, and stared at him for a few seconds while she chewed her gum loudly and Greg held his breath, still refusing to meet her stare. Eventually she turned and walked away, and Greg let out a small sigh of relief.

Left to his own devices again, Greg wandered around a bit more, all the while becoming increasingly uncomfortable. It wasn't just the fact that he was standing in the country music section of FYE anymore, but the realization that he had absolutely no idea what to get Nick for Christmas. For some reason, a CD just didn't seem right. It seemed too… friendly? Average? Friendly and average weren't the adjectives Greg would normally use to describe their relationship; he would rather opt for sexy or absolutely fucking amazing, so buying him the Dreams of Texas two disc set just didn't seem to cut it anymore.

He stood there blankly for a moment, staring at the floor as he considered his options, before he remembered that it would probably be best to find a less embarrassing place to do so, and he quickly headed for the exit.

And Greg was almost out the door, almost to the safety of the sidewalk, when his path was blocked.

"Excuse me, but we're going to have to look through your coat pockets."

Fucking hell. Nick was going to pay for this.